While candidates reach voters, diplomats engage power

While candidates campaign among the people, foreign ambassadors remain busy engaging with power centers highlighting the growing gap between voters and external influence in the election process.

Bangladesh Under Yunus: A Troubling Decline in Peace, Dignity, and Sovereignty

On a January morning in 2026, the bodies of Kaniz Subarna Swarnali and her nine-month-old child were found inside their modest home in Sabekdanga village of Bagerhat Sadar. The discovery of a mother and her infant dead under such circumstances would be shattering in any country. But in Bangladesh a nation once admired for rising from hardship to independence—this tragedy stands as a haunting emblem of political failure, systemic neglect, and a steady erosion of respect for human life.

Pakistan’s “Pro-Bangladesh” Posturing: Opportunistic Politics Disguised as Principle

In South Asia, cricket has never been an innocent game. It is a stage for power projection, a diplomatic tool, and a carrier of political messages. In the recent ICC controversy surrounding Bangladesh, Pakistan’s role is therefore not one of friendship, but another display of its familiar opportunistic politics.

Is Bangladesh Moving Toward Radical Extremism Under Dr. Yunus?

An opinionated analysis warning that Bangladesh under Dr. Yunus is facing rising political persecution, radicalization, lawlessness, and democratic backsliding, with growing concerns over human rights abuses, media suppression, and the credibility of the 2026 election.

Culture in the Crosshairs Mousiké technē: Why Chhayanaut Matters

Audity Falguni traces the long, defiant journey of Bangladesh’s most influential cultural institution ‘Chhayanaut’ as a guardian of music, secular values, and resistance through art, from the Pakistan era to the present. Audity argues that the recent attack on Chhayanaut is not mere vandalism but a continuation of extremist assaults on music, memory, and cultural freedom echoing past violence and posing a grave threat to Bangladesh’s secular cultural heritage.

Begum Rokeya and Virginia Woolf Demanding for a ‘Ladyland/Republic for Women’ and ‘A Room of One’s Own’

Begum Rokeya and Virginia Woolf, writing from different worlds yet confronting the same structures of patriarchy, imagined liberating spaces where women could think, create and lead. From Rokeya’s visionary Ladyland in Sultana’s Dream to Woolf’s reflections on intellectual freedom in A Room of One’s Own, their ideas continue to shape feminist thought. A recent screening of Sultana’s Dream renews this dialogue across time, cultures and mediums. Audity Falguni writes for BD Voice readers.

Are we living in the ‘Last Days of Pompeii’? Dhaka in Dire Need of Earthquake Preparedness

Dhaka has been rattled by a series of earthquake tremors in recent days, exposing the capital’s dangerous lack of preparedness. With building-code violations, dense unplanned urbanisation, and repeated seismic activity near Narsingdi and the Madhupur Fault, experts warn that even a moderately strong quake could turn the megacity into a disaster zone. Drawing parallels with the “Last Days of Pompeii,” the article examines rising geological risks and the urgent need for strict enforcement of safety standards, open spaces, and long-term urban resilience planning.

Inside The UN Power Struggle In Bangladesh

The rejection of Richard S. Howard, the UN Secretary-General’s nominee for Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, has turned into one of the most bizarre and politically charged diplomatic episodes in recent memory.