Canada’s Tristan Style withdraws anti-Bangladesh ad after protests

Canada’s Tristan Style has now withdrawn the anti-Bangladesh ad and posted an apology on their public Facebook page. Below is the apology they posted and the comments on the public Facebook page. Please add your comments as well.

Tristan: We recently posted a sign in one of our stores and want to apologize for the miscommunication of our message, which was removed the minute we realized the idea behind it may have been misinterpreted by some. The true intent of our message was to promote awareness of the importance of ethical manufacturing practices, something we remain committed to. Our thoughts are with the families suffering for their losses in Bangladesh. Continue reading “Canada’s Tristan Style withdraws anti-Bangladesh ad after protests”

Dhrubo Bornon: Garments & Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai

Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai: A solution to worker’s problem
Guest Post by Dhrubo Bornon (dhrubo.bornon@gmail.com)

It happened again. Due to the negligence of factory owners, more than 100 people died. And we are asking, how many times more! Didn’t we say last time that it will happen again and again until government protects the workers? Yes, that is how we think, probably everyone, who are neither the ruthless owners nor their government patrons. We think that the solution is simple. Continue reading “Dhrubo Bornon: Garments & Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai”

Savar: Tragedy and sin, common man steps in, but death toll spirals upward, “Ar koto lash dekhbo ey shadhin Bangla’e?”

Doctors Cafe: I saw a Medical student shouting for a trolley while carrying a wounded woman in his lap. We are not butchers, listen o countrymen. Today the way the Enam Medical College students were working tirelessly to save people is beyond comparison. Salute to you all! You proved today that Doctors are not butchers or dacoits.
Continue reading “Savar: Tragedy and sin, common man steps in, but death toll spirals upward, “Ar koto lash dekhbo ey shadhin Bangla’e?””

Seema Amin: Shahbagh slides into old identity dichotomy

When a demand is de-contextualised from the power forces at play, it risks this occupation by those forces. Now the ultimate effect of Shahbagh has been dividing the nation even more dangerously, rather than uniting us or showing us a path forward — for at the end of the day they did not risk enough to go against the state as well as Shibir, and thus, fell into an old identity dichotomy rather than creating a new synthesis for a new identity.
Continue reading “Seema Amin: Shahbagh slides into old identity dichotomy”

Know Thy Neighbour: Aruni Kashyap on Humayun Ahmed

Cross-posted from Caravan]
Know Thy Neighbour: On the Bangladeshi literary giant Humayun Ahmed
By Aruni Kashyap

Humayun Ahmed, by Caravan

MY GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE in Teteliguri—a village about 50 kilometres east of Guwahati, northeast India’s largest city—was a chaotic place, home, when I was growing up, to more than 20 relatives. It was there that I spent most of my school vacations, there, in that L-shaped house—where at least three women were required to lift the huge cauldron of rice off the hearth—that I began to read. Continue reading “Know Thy Neighbour: Aruni Kashyap on Humayun Ahmed”

Reclaiming Ekattur: fashi, Bangali

Another blogger, who has spent the greater part of the week at Shahbagh, who is gratified at the ‘abject rejection of the BNP-Jamaat and JP [Jatiya Party] narrative of 1971’ stirringly writes, and I quote:
‘I will never agree on the death penalty for anyone…If it is handed down for a convicted war criminal, I’ll continue to work so that it is commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or Presidential clemency. Confiscate their property and compensate their victims, and let their children find their way out of the public humiliation and shame brought upon by the exposure of truth. Let us be better than them. I will continue to be there in Shahbagh even if I’m the last man standing, and I share this belief with millions of my brothers and sisters across our land’. (greaterboka, ‘A Week in Shahbagh’,  Alal o Dulal, February 14, 2013). Continue reading “Reclaiming Ekattur: fashi, Bangali”

Nafis: Terrorist Mastermind or Witless Patsy?

Blogger Rumi (a successful medical doctor in US who came here on a student visa in the 1980s): “The outrageous, inexcusable act of The Bangladeshi Student, facilitated and influenced by an FBI undercover agent, has claimed it’s first victim – the student visa system.”
Student visas concern after terror plot
Grand Jury to be convened

Source: bdnews24

Nafis was allegedly planning something for which he will go to jail for life. But, how far would he have actually got without help from the FBI? Below are some discussions in US blogosphere about this topic.

From comments section on ATLANTIC:

Chuñdy: No one is arguing that he shouldn’t face serious jail time. We are questioning whether the FBl and the media should be portraying this 21-year-old doofus as a terrorist mastermind. They caught a gullible wannabe jihadist who couldn’t tell the difference between an inert bomb and a real bomb. Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

Mark Holland A man who can be so easily compelled to mass murder is a real threat. On the other hand, people in the FBI are ordinary and thus more concerned with personal goals than abstractions. This case will make a lot of people at FBI very famous and later, very wealthy. I have zero pity for the kid and few illusions about the “public” sector.
Continue reading “Nafis: Terrorist Mastermind or Witless Patsy?”

Fed Reserve Arrest: “I spent all my savings to send him to America”

His family said Thursday that Nafis was incapable of such actions. “My son can’t do it,” his father, Quazi Ahsanullah, said as he wept in his home in the Jatrabari neighborhood in north Dhaka… Ahsanullah said his son convinced him to send him to America to study, arguing that with a U.S. degree he had a better chance at success in Bangladesh. “I spent all my savings to send him to America,” he said. He called on the government to “get my son back home.”

Continue reading “Fed Reserve Arrest: “I spent all my savings to send him to America””

Human Rights Watch: Toxic Tanneries

In the decade since 2002, the value of leather exports in Bangladesh has grown by an average of $41 million per year. From June 2011 to July 2012 Bangladesh exported around $663 million of leather and leather goods, including footwear. This leather is exported to some 70 countries throughout the world, but principally China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United States.


Continue reading “Human Rights Watch: Toxic Tanneries”

Will “Made in Bangladesh” become a scarlet letter?

Bangladesh is on front page of NEW YORK TIMES again, twice this month, as part of the series MADE IN BANGLADESH. We at Alal o Dulal first sounded the alarm over Aminul Islam’s murder in April, and dubbed this the “coming storm” in July. Of course, nobody listened. Certainly not our shonamdhonnyo government that dismisses all critiques as “enemies of the nation.” Keep playing that deaf drumbeat.

Fighting for Bangladesh Labor, and Ending Up in Pauper’s Grave

Workers on their way to work in Ashulia, Bangladesh, where a labor organizer was killed.
Continue reading “Will “Made in Bangladesh” become a scarlet letter?”

Dhaka moves to #1 in Least Liveable City Index

Dhaka is ranked least liveable among 140 surveyed cities. Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Livability Survey ranked Dhaka 139 in 2011, and 140 in 2012.

DOWNLOAD: EIU Liveability Report 2012

DOWNLOAD: Spatially Adjusted Index Report [Dhaka ranks 2 better on this]

Least livable cities: 2012
131. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
132. Tehran, Iran
133. Douala, Cameroon
134. Tripoli, Libya
135. Karachi, Pakistan
136. Algiers, Algeria
137. Harare, Zimbabwe
138. Lagos, Nigeria
139. Port Moresby, Papua New Guineau
140. Dhaka, Bangladesh

Least livable cities: 2011
131. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
132. Tehran, Iran
133. Douala, Cameroon
134. Karachi, Pakistan
135. Tripoli, Libya
136. Algiers, Algeria
137. Lagos, Nigeria
138. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
139. Dhaka, Bangladesh
140. Harare, Zimbabwe
Continue reading “Dhaka moves to #1 in Least Liveable City Index”