Anyone who has played “alley cricket” will know that it has its own rules: e.g. two “chiefs” get to select players in tandem, and (s)he who sends the ball over the wall must fetch it. Another such rule is that the owner of the bat will have an automatic place on the team. This last provision is an everyday example of a “quota system” where able performers are replaced by those wielding power over the selection process.

It is certain that the present Rohingya sensation will soon die down, and be replaced in public memory by something far more banal.

Social media has opened floodgates of unexamined causes and unstoppable rebels. With the license to post/share anything and zero accountability, young men and women have taken to protests and activism over anything and everything.

When alleged rapist Shafat Ahmed and accomplice Shadman Sakif were arrested, and the former's father brought under investigation, I had decided not to write about the rape incident that took place in a hotel in Banani.

A great example of citizens failing to arrest political devolution is how a mediocre businessman – with a bad toupée, vocabulary of a fifth grader and freakishly small hands – danced his way to the American presidency.

The International Community seems to be unable, if not unwilling, to adequately respond to the recent escalation in Rohingya persecution. Long before this crackdown, apartheid conditions prevailed for the Muslim minority.

India's sudden-death demonetisation resembles a gamble: it will either be a big win or a catastrophic fail. Perhaps it is this realisation that keeps the administration squarely in the PM's corner.

2005: the War on Terror was in its third year. Hundreds of tonnes of explosives had pummeled Iraq and Afghanistan, and thousands

It was always destined to become iconic: an image of blood-red streams flowing through a cityscape. The city was Dhaka and the

Tania, Tania, Tania!" a ponytailed musician-type claps furiously. He is apologising to his girlfriend. His face looks as though it were

Just after we had graduated to secondary school, a new boy joined our class. This new entrant was of pale, white complexion,

In reality, a village father does not care about Bangladesh's commitments at the Girl Summit 2014; he cares about his daughter, and his social standing. Integrally linked to this sense of honour are cultural ideas like virginity or purity.

During an unprecedented attack like the one at Holey Artisan Bakery, crisis management is of utmost priority.

So, a night of absolute terror preceded the glorified Night of Power this Ramadan. And it has left Dhaka in a stupor; in a dazed state of disbelief and heartbreak.

Take a look at the news-stories that really stirred our civic discourse in 2016: Rampal, central bank heist, teacher's humiliation by lawmaker or Tonu's murder. Think back another year: remember the #RichKids incident where a drunken teen (a former MP's nephew)

Sabira has been adequately framed as a 'model' and something of a 'wildcard' - who didn't care much about social norms. Her final video, featuring her in a slightly incoherent, vulnerable state, has been branded by online media sites and uploaded endlessly for public display. Not a single voice suggested that her privacy be respected.

A former family chauffeur was recently suspended from his beloved 'government job'.

When a car spontaneously caught fire in Dhaka last week, allegedly from a heated engine, social media comments invoked the ongoing heat-spell.

The man was up against a cave wall, holding his freshly ground and moistened haematite pigment in a coconut shell. He had spent the morning painting two Babirusas (pig-deer) with the chewed, bristly end of a twig. It was a hot day in Borneo; the forest breeze did not reach inside the cave. He was about to wipe the sweat off his brow, when the sight of his arm gave him an idea. He placed his hand against the cave wall and blew paint all over it, leaving an unmistakable imprint on the side of the wall. Little did he know that 40,000 years later – his work of art would dethrone European caves as the earliest instance of human creativity. Unknowingly, he had also become one of the first, deliberate users of biometric information.

In 1988, Ershad's predictably dictator-esque declaration of a state religion led to the formation of the Committee to Resist Despotism