Arnab-Ashraf | Daily Observer

Arnab Ashraf

There are moments in a nation's journey when silence is the strategy. And then there are moments when silence becomes the betrayal. In the months -leading up to the storming the Ganabhaban, General Waker chose the silence: not because he was indifferent, but because, the discipline of a soldier demanded it. That time has now ...

Concerns reign over foreign operators at Ctg port

Arnab Ashraf

Still the surge of a so-called humanitarian corridor to Rakhine and the whispered intentions of handing over Chattogram's vital terminals to foreign companies are lurking ominously in the skies above Bangladesh's utmost volatile political fields. These decisions -draped in the pretence of diplomacy and developmental necessity -are rising like fog before a storm. Though elite ...

UN, WTO sidestepped by global top economies

Arnab Ashraf

The very business discipline in international trade is being disregarded by the world's largest economies, chiefly the United States and China. Yet, in a divided world, nations find themselves with no viable alternative but to cling to fixed and formal trade rules. According to leading international business think tanks, the United Nations (UN) and World ...

Silent N-coercion in the region

Arnab Ashraf

In South Asia-a region as ancient as it is volatile-the shadow of nuclear threat looms large. Today, as murmurs of nuclear coercion echo from Islamabad to Beijing, India finds itself at the heart of a mounting strategic storm. The term "nuclear blackmail" evokes the threat of silent coercion-where nuclear capability is not used for defence, but ...

Kashmir is a victim of Indo-Pak rivalries

Arnab Ashraf

Peace and tranquility has been shattered in Kashmir every now and then since the independence of the two bitter rivals, Pakistan and India in 1947. And the latest incident took place in its key tourist spot of Pahalgam in the Indian-controlled Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir that claimed lives of at least 26 people ...

Who is to blame for world instability?

Arnab Ashraf

An uneasy calm is prevailing across the globe because of some top leaders. Their power stems not from a shared ideology - but from a shared instinct for disruption. Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Narendra Modi, three men separated by geography and strategy, now form an unspoken gravitational force, dragging vast swathes of the world ...

It's high time Bangladesh sought alternatives to IMF's funding

Arnab Ashraf

Since the very dawning of Bangladesh's independence, the country has struggled to achieve more than just a sovereignty. People of then East Pakistan fought a war in 1971 for their soil, but they never won control over the economy. Rather, since the 1980s, institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have ...

Declining capital equipment imports hits our industrial growth

Arnab Ashraf

Bangladesh's economy is facing mounting challenges as both the import of capital equipment and government debt are showing troubling trends -raising alarms about the country's economic sustainability. Over the last few fiscals, a sharp decline in the import of capital equipment has been observed. This is directly affecting industrial growth, employment opportunities, and investment in ...

New parties wooing voters

Arnab Ashraf

The political landscape in Bangladesh is heating up. The country is now poised for its national election which is likely to take place in December this year. New political forces, including National Citizen Party (NCP), are struggling to gain traction with voters, despite calling for major reforms before the poll. Passionate rhetoric aside, these emerging ...

Sylhet airport's cargo handling plan after India ban brings relief to exporters

Arnab Ashraf

With the right support, Sylhet has the potential to become more than a regional gateway. It could emerge as a symbol of Bangladesh's economic adaptability and ambition in an increasingly complex global environment.In the wake of India's sudden suspension of transhipment privileges for Bangladeshi goods, the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) has acted swiftly ...