Views / Reviews

Red Sea crisis and global trade

Red Sea crisis and global trade

In October last year, in response to the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, the Yemini Arab resistance movement Ansar Allah (Partisans of God) launched a barrage of missiles and rockets on Israel. Since then, they have been stepping up their attacks firing missile


Making a smooth, sustainable graduation for LDCs

Making a smooth, sustainable graduation for LDCs

We are meeting at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) at a time when the world is facing multidimensional challenges in the form of post-pandemic shocks, economic volatility, food insecurity, rising inequality, increasing unemployment, and climate disaster, all accentuated by ongoing internation

Glimpses of Ghalib's glory

Glimpses of Ghalib's glory

There aren't two words about the fact that Mirza Ghalib is the most famous and popular Urdu poet of all time in the world, and it is widely believed that he took Urdu to the zenith of glory. Being a courtier of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, in Delhi, he is today remembered as the bri

Documentation of Siliguri Conference

Documentation of Siliguri Conference

We were the war generation Indian children, as India had fought three wars in our childhood years. 1948, 1962 and 1965. 1971 was still to happen. My father – Brigadier Ajit Kumar Mitra, AVSM, was born in Odisha in 1921, to Dukhishyam and Indira Mitra, and belonged to a small zamindar family i

From film to digital: Bangladesh's photographic journey

From film to digital: Bangladesh's photographic journey

As human beings, storytelling is an inherent part of our existence. The countless cells within our brains and bodies each harbour distinct tales. Indeed, the entire framework of civilisation is crafted from these narratives or stories.  Individuals have endeavoured to encapsulate and communic

The good and the evil in Gaza war

The good and the evil in Gaza war

Wars are known to throw up the good and the evil in men and women involved in or affected by it, directly or indirectly. Few wars have brought out these contrasting sides of human persona so starkly and consequentially as the war now raging in Gaza for over a month has. The ‘good’ here

The Covid poor and mitigation measures 

The Covid poor and mitigation measures 

That global shocks cause poverty is well known and few shocks have been as extensive as Covid. What made this pandemic so vicious was that the impact was all encompassing and affected every aspect of life and in every land. Unlike natural disasters which affect a country or a region, Covid was glob

Walking down the heritage heaven of Sharat Gupta Road

Walking down the heritage heaven of Sharat Gupta Road

Starting from the Narinda Police Fari, if you walk straight, you will find a pink-coloured house dated back to the British colonial period. A few steps ahead, you will witness nearly a century-old shrine of a saint known to the locals as Peer Saheb. A Zamindarbari-like house will follow next. When

Instilling passion for 'other books' into children

Instilling passion for 'other books' into children

School textbooks play little role in prompting teenage students to go for pleasure-reading. At school, few Bangla teachers are found going beyond the confines of the syllabus contents fixed in a textbook. Even the students in the higher classes aren't normally given clues to 'out books' --- books o