Poor Countries Need to Think Twice About Social Distancing

By AHMED MUSHFIQ MOBARAK and  ZACHARY BARNETT-HOWELL

Policies imposed in rich countries to fight the coronavirus could have adverse effects in low-income nations—potentially endangering more lives than they save.

(Reprinted from Foreign Policy magazine where it was posted on 10 April.)

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, varying levels of social distancing have been implemented around the world, including in China, Europe, and much of the United States. Hundreds of millions of people have accepted dramatic disruptions to their daily lives and substantial economic losses based on the reasoning that slowing the spread of the coronavirus can keep health care systems from becoming overwhelmed. Continue reading “Poor Countries Need to Think Twice About Social Distancing”

The Drug Triangle: The Poor as Collateral Damage

The Drug Triangle: The Poor as Collateral Damage
by Shaher Zaidi for AlalODulal.org, reprinted in Dhaka Tribune, Sep 10, 2013

Afsan Chowdhury recently posed this question: At the Bdnews roundtable on the Oishee incident and the role of media and police, some people said that addiction was much more in the English medium schools… How much of this is perceptional and how much real ? Continue reading “The Drug Triangle: The Poor as Collateral Damage”