Author: Asian Bangla

Fourteen year-old Mahi becomes calm and quiet, according to his family members. “Mahi becomes calm and quiet and he is not saying anything,” one of his relatives, Khondoker Rezaul Karim, told Prothom Alo. Tanjid Sultan Mahi, the only child of pilot Abid Sultan, has lost both of his parents in a span of 10 days. His mother Afsana Khanam died in a city hospital at 9:30am on Friday. Earlier, pilot Abid Sultan died in US Bangla plane crash in Kathmandu, Nepal. Afsana was undergoing treatment at National Institute of Neuroscience and Hospital in the capital. She suffered strokes twice after…

Bangladesh is among five countries where minimum standard of democracy is absent, according to a German organisation. The country is under an autocratic government, observed Bertelsmann Stiftung in its latest Transformation Index released on Friday. Shortcoming in elections in Bangladesh in recent times has been pointed out as sign of autocracy. The report said that they observed setback in terms of democracy in Bangladesh.

Media punditologists love to regale you with their cliché insight about how living in the White House is like living in a bubble – the ultimate in isolation from reality. So it is time we say a good word about Melania Trump. Because at the White House on Tuesday, the first lady made clear she is determined to continue her crusade to combat online bullying. She invited the officials of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Snap and Twitter to a White House roundtable discussion of the evils perpetuated by online bullying. This was her first event devoted to the topic since she…

Before Facebook suspended Aleksandr Kogan from its platform for the data harvesting “scam” at the centre of the unfolding Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media company enjoyed a close enough relationship with the researcher that it provided him with an anonymised, aggregate dataset of 57bn Facebook friendships. Facebook provided the dataset of “every friendship formed in 2011 in every country in the world at the national aggregate level” to Kogan’s University of Cambridge laboratory for a study on international friendships published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2015. Two Facebook employees were named as co-authors of the study, alongside researchers…

Giving credit to the people for Bangladesh’s meeting the eligibility criteria to graduate to a developing country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the people can achieve anything. “It is an achievement of the people of Bangladesh. I think the country’s people are the main source of all power. They can achieve anything,” she said. The PM was addressing a reception accorded to her at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) for the government’s achievement of meeting the eligibility criteria to graduate from the LDC group. The function was organised as part of the government’s five-day programme to celebrate the achievement.…

President visits memory-bearing Balat village in Meghalaya President Md Abdul Hamid on Friday visited Balat village in Meghalaya, where he stayed during the 1971 Liberation War, and recollected the memories of those days. During the Liberation War, Abdul Hamid along with his family was residing in a rented house at the village and he was also the sub-sector commander of the Bangladesh Liberation Force (Mujib Bahini). At that time, he inspired and organised Bangladeshi youths, who took shelter in India at Gumaghat, Moilam and Balat in Meghalaya. He established a youth reception camp at Balat for Bangladeshi youths and he…

There’s a decent chance you came to this article via Twitter. While the company isn’t as big as its main rival, Facebook, it can be argued that in today’s climate, Twitter is the more socially important and era-defining network. As proof, you need to look no further than the president of the United States, who can’t seem to go a day without a tweet, and those short messages often have global implications. But it’s not just Donald Trump. As of 2016, 83% of the world’s leaders were on Twitter, as is virtually every journalist in the world. They’re joined by…

Egyptian Grand Mufti Shawki Ibrahim said that Islam is a religion of peace and security that emphasises on the well-being of humanity. He said this while addressing the international conference on the promotion of religious tolerance in the light of the seerah of Holy Prophet (PBUH) in Islamabad on Thursday. The Grand Mufti of Egypt said that “as a Muslim, we have a responsibility to play our due role for the betterment and prosperity of society and the entire world.” He further said that a wrong narrative was being promoted about Islam these days and there was a need to…

BNP today blasted the ruling Awami League for celebrating a countrywide programme by holding government staff hostage in the name of Bangladesh’s graduation from the Least Development Countries (LDCs). “It is nothing but a perverted joke with the nation,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Rizvi Ahmed came up with the remarks hours after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was accorded a grand reception at a programme in Dhaka on this occasion. Holding the government responsible for turning the country into a sorry state, Rizvi said democracy and good governance have been destroyed as the ruling quarter has indulged in misdeeds and…

A world addled by climate change has seen a four-fold increase in major flooding events since 1980, and a doubling of significant storms, droughts and heat waves, Europe’s national science academies jointly reported Wednesday. In Europe, where precise data reaches back decades, the number of severe floods has jumped five fold since 1995, according to the report, which updates a 2013 assessment. “There has been, and continues to be, a significant increase in the frequency of extreme weather events,” said Michael Norton, environmental programme director for the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council. “They underline the importance of avoiding greenhouse gases,…