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Counterpoint is a weekly newspaper and online platform offering the sharpest and most incisive in-depth analysis and commentary you will find anywhere on the issues shaping Bangladesh and the world today.

If the attraction itself is a disorder, the surrounding permission structure is a social choice, and Bangladesh has buil...
03/09/2026

If the attraction itself is a disorder, the surrounding permission structure is a social choice, and Bangladesh has built one of the most effective permission structures in the region. Bangladesh still has one of the highest child marriage rates in the world.

When a society routinely marries off girls before eighteen, it does not merely fail to protect those girls. It manufactures a cultural category in which a grown man's sexual and marital interest in a child is not deviant but ordinary, sometimes even desirable, provided a nikah is performed first.

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Regardless of whether we as a people would want to see these foreigner-exclusive establishments on our beach, the questi...
03/09/2026

Regardless of whether we as a people would want to see these foreigner-exclusive establishments on our beach, the question that the authorities never asked was why on earth would droves of tourists arrive from abroad to enjoy such facilities in a country like Bangladesh, whereas plenty of those are already spread all throughout the world and well-trodden.

The answer is, they will not. They know that attempting to enjoy the beach, bars, clubs, casinos, etc. in a manner they desire and are used to is simply inappropriate in a Muslim-majority country. They will not come.

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If female and male students bear substantially different restrictions and burdens on their movement, the conversation ca...
02/09/2026

If female and male students bear substantially different restrictions and burdens on their movement, the conversation cannot end with “that is the hall rule”. We should ask what objective purpose the distinction serves, whether it is necessary and proportionate, whether it is supported by evidence, and whether the same safety objective could be achieved through less restrictive means.

There is also a more basic question: What exactly happens after 10pm?

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Six months into the new government, people are reserving judgment. They see problems mounting on almost every front. But...
02/09/2026

Six months into the new government, people are reserving judgment. They see problems mounting on almost every front. But they also understand, correctly, that the government did not create most of these problems.

They are prepared to give it time to fix things. And, for now at least, they like what they see in the Prime Minister. Put differently: People accept that things are tough, but they are not yet blaming the government for it.

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Across much of the Muslim-majority post-colonial world, power has repeatedly learned to work with two broad kinds of pol...
02/09/2026

Across much of the Muslim-majority post-colonial world, power has repeatedly learned to work with two broad kinds of political clothing. One is the modernizing secular/progressive coat. The other is the "authorized" religious coat.

The secular coat came with the language of progress, science, development, constitutionalism and modernity. Colonial administrations educated elites who could speak the language of the empire and later of the international system.

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The Rohingya crisis has entered a stage that should concern the world for a reason that goes beyond the numbers. Nearly ...
01/09/2026

The Rohingya crisis has entered a stage that should concern the world for a reason that goes beyond the numbers. Nearly a decade after the mass displacement of Rohingya from Myanmar, the central question is no longer simply when they will return.

The more uncomfortable question is whether the international community has allowed temporary refuge to become a permanent substitute for a political solution.

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In the traditional folk arts, an artist does not merely recite a song; they inhabit its bhav -- its emotional and spirit...
01/09/2026

In the traditional folk arts, an artist does not merely recite a song; they inhabit its bhav -- its emotional and spiritual core. When a Baul or a Sufi-Fakir sings, the power comes from a direct, unpretentious effort to reach the human heart and provoke internal transformation.

​Urban institutionalism stripped away this raw connection. By turning cultural heritage into an elite compliance test -- where singing Rabindra Sangeet or patriotic 1971 anthems required proper technique without necessarily requiring deep, felt understanding -- it created an artificial divide between "high culture" and the public.

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When citizens are slaughtered in their sleep within the four walls of their homes, the fundamental social contract betwe...
01/09/2026

When citizens are slaughtered in their sleep within the four walls of their homes, the fundamental social contract between the state and its populace comes under severe strain. A healthy society demands that individuals feel safe not only in public spaces, but behind locked bedroom doors.

Today, however, the rampant proliferation of narcotics, protracted land disputes, an entrenched culture of impunity, and systemic failures in objective criminal investigation have collectively rendered even the home a zone of peril.

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The war may be in the Middle East, but one of its economic casualties can therefore be a small farmer in Rangpur who has...
01/09/2026

The war may be in the Middle East, but one of its economic casualties can therefore be a small farmer in Rangpur who has never left Bangladesh.

This is why food security cannot be reduced to the amount of cultivable land a country possesses. It also depends on whether the energy, fertilizer, transport and financing required to cultivate that land remain available and affordable during an international crisis.

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The pact must remain fundamentally defensive; Bangladesh must retain sovereign control over decisions involving the depl...
01/09/2026

The pact must remain fundamentally defensive; Bangladesh must retain sovereign control over decisions involving the deployment of its armed forces; membership should not create an automatic obligation to participate in conflicts unrelated to Bangladesh’s security; and participation should produce tangible benefits in defense cooperation, technology, investment, energy and economic development.

This is particularly important because Bangladesh occupies a strategically significant position in the Bay of Bengal. It is no longer a peripheral player.

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