Dhaka, Aug 20 (UNB) – Nobel laureate Dr Amartya Sen on Monday vehemently criticised the government’s move on Kashmir, saying it not only emphasised majority rule “as opposed to it sustaining the rights of all human beings”. “I don’t think…
Category: Op-Ed
None compensates the BD poor for the rawhide market collapse
The rawhide and skin merchants have started selling their merchandise – hide collected during the Eid-ul-Adha festival – after mediation by the apex business chamber FBCCI. Before the meeting with the FBCCI and the tanners, organised by the Ministry of…
Because chuddies are forever
Sudhirendar Sharma It is a decade since unsuspecting women and men drinking at a bar in Mangalore were at the receiving end of unprovoked violence at the hands of the self-styled moral custodians, the-so-called valiant foot soldiers of Sri Ram…
A key role for 1.8 bn youth in UN’s 2030 dev agenda
By Thalif Deen UN, Aug 16 2019 (IPS) – The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is convinced that the world’s 1.8 billion adolescents and youth– a quarter of the global population—have a key role to play in helping implement the UN’s…
Rules of war widely flouted, 70 years on: Red Cross
By James Reinl Reprint UN, Aug 14 2019 (IPS) – World governments are not doing enough to stop armed groups from committing mass rape, torture and other war crimes, the head of the Red Cross aid group head Peter Maurer…
Dengue lesson for Dhakaites: Don’t take health threat lightly
Mostafa Kamal Majumder A tiny kid of two years carried in the lap was telling his father, ‘I will not be given this’ as another child was screaming as a paramedic at a reputed private hospital was piercing a needle…
Is India on track to beat the perfect storm?
By Manipadma Jena New Delhi, Aug 12 2019 (IPS) – “The Perfect Storm” was a dire prediction that by 2030 food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources together with climate change would threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts…
Fighting violence with evidence
by Rachel Locke, David Steven San Diego/New York – In last year’s Pathways for Peace report – the result of a joint study by the United Nations and the World Bank – UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world…
Compassionate youths rush to help flood victims
Sir Frank Peters A humanitarian group of compassionate youths were a sight for sore eyes and the answer to the soulful prayers of hundreds of appreciative villagers in the Kurigram (Char Rajibpur) area of Bangladesh this week.
The soul of water: Spiritualism can redeem our dying rivers
Sudhirendar Sharma The Ganga’s sacredness doesn’t guarantee its purity, as devotees draw a distinction between material cleanliness and ritual purity. Paradox! Exploiting the very source of life for economic and political gains has reduced our individual and collective relationship with…
Burning forests for rain, and other climate catastrophes
By Miriam Gathigah Nairobi, Aug 9 2019 (IPS) – The villagers living on the foothills of Mount Kenya have a belief: If they burn the forest, the rains will come.
Turning agro-waste into environment-friendly plastics
by Sahana Ghosh on 30 July 2019 • Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Italy’s port city of Genoa is making bioplastics from agro-waste. The institute has tied up with the city’s central vegetable market for sourcing raw material. • The…
The leftovers of cross-border hostility
Sudhirendar Sharma Despite my wife’s trepidation, I couldn’t resist travelling to support local communities in their post-war rehabilitation, just about the time when the guns were falling silent during the Kargil War. The occasional thunder from the burning ammunition dump…
A rural sanitation model that works
By Liby Johnson BHUBANESWAR, Odisha, India, Jul 30 2019 (IPS) – Research and experience across more than two decades in rural Odisha, India, show that an effective rural sanitation model requires both financial assistance and integrated water supply.
Using renewable energy, circular economy to fight poverty
By Daniel Gutman Buenos Aires, Jul 29 2019 (IPS) – On the outer edges of Buenos Aires proper, where the paved streets end and the narrow alleyways of one of Argentina’s largest shantytowns begins, visitors can find the En Haccore…
Was slavery the world’s first human rights violation?
By Thalif Deen UN, Mar 7 2019 (IPS) – The United Nations, which diligently monitors human rights violations worldwide, believes that centuries-old slavery still exists worldwide.
Money grows on trees–don’t uproot them
By Friday Phiri Pemba, Zambia, Jul 26 2019 (IPS) – Jennifer Handondo, a small scale farmer of Choma district in southern Zambia, plants food crops such as maize mostly for her family’s needs. Because of uncharacteristically high temperatures and low…
India’s Lok Sabha passes ‘Triple Talaq’ bill
Dhaka, July 26 (UNB)- Lok Sabha passed the bill of ‘Triple talaq’, a customary practice among Muslim that dissolves a marriage when the husband says the word ‘talaq’ thrice, after a day-long heated battle on Thursday that also witnessed a…
Treaty violators make mockery of refugee convention
By Thalif Deen UN, Jul 23 2019 (IPS) – With the rise of rightwing nationalism, primarily in the Western world, an increasingly large number of countries are not only abandoning multilateralism but also violating international treaties and conventions signed and…
How the world can be better prepared to handle epidemics
By Ifeanyi Nsofor ABUJA, Jul 19 2019 (IPS) – The 2019 G20 Summit was held recently in Osaka, Japan. The Summit ended with the “G20 Osaka Leaders’ Declaration”, which identifies health as a prerequisite for sustainable and inclusive economic growth,…
How governments still allow violence against children
By Tamara Tutnjevic Gorman New York, Jul 16 2019 (IPS) – Despite what you might have heard, things are getting better, every year. We are making amazing progress on fighting diseases, reducing the preventable deaths of children, and investing huge…
US leads donor funding to fight AIDS amidst overall decline
By Caley Pigliucci UN, Jul 19 2019 (IPS) – Since 2010, donor funding to fight HIV/AIDS in low-and middle-income countries has dropped significantly, according to a new report released recently.
Will a global fund help deliver UN’s development agenda?
By Thalif Deen UN, Jul 19 2019 (IPS) – The United Nations, which has been tracking both the successes and failures of its highly-ambitious Agenda for Sustainable Development, has warned that “progress has been slow” in many of the 17…
How China’s Africa Alliance is shifting world order
By Daniel Yang UN, Jul 19 2019 (IPS) – When the United Nations General Assembly met in 2007 to vote on North Korea’s human rights record, only 10 of the 56 African countries voted with the U.S.-led western coalition.
The EU needs a ‘Social Imbalances Procedure’
by Sebastiano Sabato, Bart Vanhercke and Francesco Corti on 17th July 2019 The focus of the European Union on fiscal consolidation has left European societies out of kilter and undermined the union’s legitimacy. A Social Imbalances Procedure could begin to…
Facebook and friends threaten to libralise the world
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, Jul 16 2019 (IPS) – On 17 June, a Facebook white paper proposed a new global digital currency it plans to launch in the first half of 2020. The…
Women are pivotal in the war on terror
By Ambassador Amina Mohamed Nairobi, Kenya, Jul 15 2019 (IPS) – On 10 July 2019 I was honored to moderate a meeting with women’s groups for the UN Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres, whose aim was to better diagnose the…
Avoiding the mistakes of Asian green revolution in Africa
By Isaiah Esipisu Dodoma, Tanzania, Jul 11 2019 (IPS) – Research scientists are studying groundwater resources in three African countries in order to understand the renewability of the source and how people can use it sustainably towards a green revolution…
Fight to end violence against women in Asia-Pacific region
By Caley Pigliucci UN, Jul 12 2019 (IPS) – Parliamentarians met in Laos last week to discuss violence against women and girls. The meeting was organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and hosted by the National Assembly…
Let’s talk about sex – and why power matters
By Dr Natalia Kanem UN, Jul 11 2019 (IPS) – Every year on World Population Day (July 11), UNFPA receives queries from journalists about the total number of people around the world. Numbers are indeed important because they help governments…