Terming the government’s latest initiative to amend the Cyber Safety Act “ominous,” Mahfuz Anam, editor of this paper, wrote in his September 25 column that “there is no way that media can be protected under the draft cyber protection law.” He proposed “a separate cyber law for the media, or at least a separate set of rules and guidelines” that would prevent cybercrime without hampering freedom of speech, expression and publication. His suggestion echoes, in part, recommendations made by the Media Reform Commission (MRC) under the interim government. It is therefore worth revisiting those recommendations, particularly the proposed reforms aimed at protecting journalism while addressing the growing threats posed by disinformation and “fake news.” The MRC’s proposals broadly resemble rules and regulations already being implemented in many European countries and the UK. The proposed amendments to the cyber law appear to be a knee-jerk response to the threat of instability fuelled by rumo...

  About a year ago, a leading business leader told me a story about another business tycoon and once-powerful adviser to ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He is now in prison, facing a number of cases ranging from money laundering to crimes against humanity, and this is the second time he has returned to prison. So, the story goes that when Hasina formed the government in 2009, she asked the said adviser what job he would like to have. To her utter disbelief, he apparently asked for a position that would allow him to oversee prison reform. Since prisons fall under the Ministry of Home Affairs, there was virtually no chance she would agree. She asked him why he wanted responsibility for prisons. The adviser, I was told, explained that when he was imprisoned during 2007-08, he had been lodged in one of the condemned cells at the Old Dhaka Central Jail. One night, while offering Tahajjud prayer, he went into prostration and felt something cold beneath his forehead. A chilling sensa...

On August 20, for only the second time in our history, parliamentarians will have the opportunity to elect the president of the republic. If the ruling party sticks to its decision not to allow its MPs to vote freely, however, the entire exercise is poised to be anything but an election. It could instead be described as the beginning of the new president’s coronation. Like the first presidential vote 35 years ago, this one too follows another pro-democracy uprising. The first uprising forced out the military dictator, General HM Ershad; the second overthrew the civilian but increasingly dictatorial regime of Sheikh Hasina. In between these upheavals, we had seven presidential elections, all won unopposed by nominees of the then ruling parties. Interestingly, in both post-uprising parliaments, BNP would play a decisive role in determining the country’s democratic future. The second mass uprising, known as the July Uprising, was, in many ways, a very different political upheaval. It ...

  The August 5, 2026 media interaction at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club South Asia (FCC South Asia) in Delhi by ousted Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina appears to have triggered a full-scale diplomatic spat between Bangladesh and India. It was her second such event hosted at the same venue by the same media group within seven months. The differences between the January 23 and August 5 events, however, are remarkably stark, not only in their substance but also in their fallout. Both events were organised after Hasina was found guilty of crimes against humanity by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) and sentenced to death. On January 23, the FCC only delivered an audio message from Hasina. On August 5, however, both she and her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, took questions from the media. The first event took place while the interim government led by Professor Muhammad Yunus was in office, ahead of the February 12 national election. The second was held on the very day Bangladesh was ...

BJP’s victory  in the West Bengal assembly elections has been widely described as a tectonic shift—only the second change in power in the state in the last 50 years. Both transitions are significant: the first ended 34 years of rule by the socialist Left Front, while the second has now replaced the centrist Trinamool Congress (TMC) with the right-wing BJP, a party rooted in Hindutva politics. Although broadly secular forces governed West Bengal after India’s independence, the state was also home to the early seeds of Hindutva-based politics. BJP’s ideological forebear, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who was associated with the Hindu Mahasabha and Jana Sangh, hailed from West Bengal. It is, therefore, unsurprising that BJP’s state leadership marked its victory by  paying homage  to him, underscoring the symbolic significance of this political shift. According to  data  from the Election Commission of India, the BJP secured 45.84 percent of the vote, improving upon its ...

  Do you feel exhausted trying to find reliable facts about everything happening around you? As emerging digital platforms increasingly outpace legacy media, it is often frustrating to discover that a seemingly credible story, complete with high-quality video footage, turns out to be fabricated. Such content is frequently designed either to malign individuals or to advance the vested interests of particular groups. While many of these interests are political in nature, they can also serve corporate or business agendas. Rapid technological advancement and the widespread, low-cost accessibility of artificial intelligence (AI) tools have significantly lowered the barriers to content creation. Today, almost anyone with minimal resources can become a content producer. Much of this cheap, low-quality content is now weaponised as propaganda, used by malicious actors to run disinformation and misinformation campaigns. Communication experts have coined the term “slopaganda” to describe this...