FOR my column title today, I am stealing the title of the classic account by Betsy Hartmann and James Boyce of the year they spent in a small Bangladeshi village in the early 1970s. The violence in their title refers to the violence done to the soul by the grinding poverty and hopelessness they found [...]

Chairman of Research Initiatives, Bangladesh (RIB) Shamsul Bari speaks at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity in the city yesterday on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.Photo: STAR Staff Correspondent

Speaker offers talks with opposition to settle dispute Staff Correspondent Speaker Abdul Hamid will mediate talks between the chief whips to resolve the row over letters assigning the ruling Awami League lawmakers from women’s quota to oversee development activities in the opposition constituencies. He came up with the proposal following a heated debate over the [...]

It is only woes without empowerment. Md. Asadullah Khan

Muhith tells Mahila Parishad council Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said his government is working to recognise the domestic labour of women, which always remains uncounted in patriarchal society. “The government also believes in the equal rights of labour and it will work to enforce the employers to pay same wages and rights at workplaces.” [...]

Speakers tell national workshop Dowry, a widely practised social malaise, forces many families deeper into poverty and it is one of the main reasons behind violence against women, speakers at a national workshop said yesterday. Education, economic empowerment of women, women’s equal rights to property and social awareness can help eliminate dowry system, they added. [...]

In the time it takes us to get to the end of this sentence, seven people have been added to the population of the world. At this rate, the United Nations (UN) estimates the number of people on the planet will nearly double by the middle of this century. Even with significant reductions in birth [...]

The International Women’s Day will be observed with enthusiasm today (Monday) in Bangladesh, as in elsewhere in the world. The observation of the day this year bears special significance as it marks its 100th observance, since it started in 1910 from New York in the USA. The International Women’s Day and related activities a century [...]

On the occasion of the Independence Day fashion house Charka has introduced a collection of red and green attires for men and women. The fatuas, kurtas, saris and panjabis are available in various designs and patterns including appliqué, block, karchupi etc. The patriotic collection is priced within a very reasonable range. The fatuas are available [...]

Fashion house Laal-Sada-Neel-Holud has launched new attires coloured in red and green to celebrate Independence Day on March 26. The apparels are made of local fabrics. There are punjabis for men and shalwar kameezes and saris for women in the collection. The saris have been decorated with blocks in red on green background, and finished [...]

by Sharmin Chowdhury It is time to de-stress yourself and revive your beauty that has gone weary in the course of your busy life, as RED is now here to rediscover your ethnic definition. Emphasising on bringing out and nurturing the beauty every individual is born with, RED offers a wide range of services and [...]

by Rahnuma Ahmed But we must ask ourselves whether we have learnt to respect the spirit of the language movement, or whether the language movement, Bangla bhasha, and Bengali nationhood, which were once rallying cries against oppression, have become tools of oppression themselves. When the Santals of Bangladesh sing ora amar mukher bhasha kaira nite [...]

by Nurul Kabir … the people of a country cannot make any substantive progress with its vast majority, including women, who constitute more than 50 per cent of Bangladesh’s population, remaining subjugated politically, economically and culturally. And of the vast majority in a political oligarchy like Bangladesh, women remain the worst victims, as they are [...]

Assailants on Wednesday morning shot dead a businessman and his wife in their rented house allegedly over their rejection of a marriage proposal for their daughter at Kalachandpur in the Gulshan area in Dhaka. The deceased were fisheries and nursery businessman Sadikur Rahman, 50, and his wife, Romana Nargis, 45, residents of Kalachandpur School Road [...]