Bangladesh
Building for Climate Change
Bangladeshi architects are adapting to climate change by using traditional building techniques and local materials. They're designing innovative structures, such as movable houses for flood zones and brick hospitals that withstand rising sea levels, offering valuable lessons for sustainable building globally.
A Pivot in Dhaka
Pakistan and Bangladesh began strengthening ties following the ouster of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, after which she sought asylum in India. The thaw has included high-level meetings, the resumption of direct trade and eased visa restrictions — developments that have made India increasingly wary.
The Development Economist Leading Bangladesh’s Transitional Government
The student protesters who toppled the Bangladeshi government chose Muhammad Yunus, “banker to the poor” and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to lead the country’s transitional government. Yet it remains to be seen how the vision and experience he brings from outside politics might shape the nation’s future.
In Bangladesh, a Personality Cult Gives Way After Student Protests
Recent protests in Bangladesh spotlighted former leader Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure — marked by high youth unemployment and crackdowns on press, dissenters and the opposition — and her attempts to create a personality cult around her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the “Father of the Nation.”
Bangladeshi Cinema Is Making Waves at Home and Around the World
A seismic shift has been taking place in Bangladeshi cinema thanks to local streaming platforms that have been producing a range of stories from social dramas and spy thrillers to historical fiction and adaptations of Shakespeare plays. At the same time, a host of Bangladeshi films are making waves on the international film festival circuit.
Coke Studio Bangla Celebrates Bangladeshi Culture and History One Song at a Time
Coke Studio Bangla mines the contributions of the culture shapers of Bangladesh, prioritizing the need to showcase the language that was the raison d’etre of the country's freedom movement. Fusing folk ballads, protest songs and patriotic anthems with contemporary music, it has created a mixtape for the youth and celebrated the nation’s rich culture.
Between Muhammad Ali and Me
Bangladesh’s independence was, and remains, a taboo topic in Pakistan, and much of it is blamed on the Cold War, Bhutto, and Indian political machinations. I had to reassess that post-independence propaganda I had been fed in later years. And, of course, the biggest shock was my discovery at 11 that Muhammad Ali was not Bengali!