A record 10,000 enthusiasts joined and practiced yoga on the International Yoga Day at Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka. Earlier the record turnout was around 5,000 last year. Mumpy Dey, teacher of Indian Culture at Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre or IGCC, conducted the Common Yoga Protocol. Demonstration of yoga asanas were also performed by yoga students of the IGCC and other yoga institutes in Dhaka.
A day after a closed-door hearing on its jurisdiction to try a case on alleged deportation of Rohingya, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has sent a request to Myanmar to know its view on the matter. The ICC’s pre-trial chamber sent the request to Myanmar on Thursday (Jun 21) and requested it to give its written reply publicly or confidentially by July 27.
Former US President Richard Nixon opposed India during Bangladesh’s 1971 war with Pakistan because he believed India’s military action would set a “bad precedent” and endanger the future of any small country, according to the declassified documents of the era. Nixon made those remarks during a meeting with the then Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato during their meeting at San Clements in California, PTI reports citing the declassified documents.
Bangladesh had gone through military rule between 1975 and 1990, but today it is seen as a vibrant (and turbulent) democracy. However, Western observers have been harping on a marked and persistent “democracy deficit”, viewing the South Asian country through Western concerns and suggesting solutions with those concerns in mind. Bangladeshi commentators, on the other hand, see the same phenomena from a different angle and suggest a different set of solutions, writes P.K.Balachandran in DailyFT.
Down the centuries,cloth has been a widely used base for artistic expression across the Indian sub-continent and South and South-east Asia. Cloth as a base for artistic expression in the form of “narrative scrolls” can be dated to 9 th-12 th century AD writes cultural and visual athropoligist Dr.Lopamudra Maitra Bajpai.
For the first time since its inception, the South Asian University will be handing out PhD Degrees to 6 of its scholars – one each from Afghanistan and Bangladesh and 4 from India, said Dr.Sasanka Perera from Sri Lanka, who is the Vice President of the university, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology.
Bangladesh has been a long standing contributor to UN Peace Keeping missions across the globe kicking off their involvement way back in 1988.In the past thirty years, thousands of young Bangladeshi men and women have toiled abroad under difficult conditions and trying circumstances to win laurels from the UN authorities and kudos from grateful populations, writes P.K.Balachandran in South Asian Monitor.
It was a rich harvest of awards for Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at 8 th. SAARC Film Festival which concluded here on Sunday. While Sri Lanka bagged the Best Director, Best Actor and Best Sound Recording awards and also a Special Jury award, Bangladesh walked away with the Best Feature Film, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Music Direction awards. India too acquitted itself creditably, though not to the same extent as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It also got four awards; those of Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Short Film. One of the two Special Jury Awards also went to India, writes P.K.Balachandran in Daily Mirror.
Tauquir Ahmed’s Bangladeshi film Halda virtually swept the awards given away at the Eighth SAARC Film Festival which concluded here on Sunday. The film bagged not only the Best Feature Film Award, but also those for Best Original Score, Best Editor and Best Cinematographer. At the last festival in 2017, Tauquir’s film Oggattonama had won the Best Screenplay award.
The House of Commons’ committee on International Development has said in its report that the persecution of the Rohingyas by Myanmar should be taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC), reports P.K.Balachandran in South Asian Monitor. The report recommended that the UK and its allies “gather support for the UN Security Council to refer Burma (Myanmar) to the International Criminal Court and to apply targeted financial sanctions to all identifiable key figures.”