News

The Earth is an active tinderbox. More than simply experiencing global warming, the Earth is experiencing Global Burning. Europe has had more than 1,700 fires since the start of 2026, burning nearly 620,600 hectares (roughly 1,500,000 acres) of land. The USA, during the same period, has had over 50,000 fires, burning over 7,700,000 acres of land. Canada has had over 4,900 fires, burning more than 4,329,000 hectares (roughly 10,700,000 acres, or nearly twice the size of Vermont).

Bangladesh has always educated its citizens twice -- once in its institutions and once in its streets. The classroom teaches what the nation wants to be. The street teaches what the nation truly is.

She hadn't planned to be there. Riya was a third-year sociology student at Dhaka University; she had spent the morning preparing for a mid-term examination. By afternoon, she was standing at the intersection of Shahbagh, her textbook in her bag, a homemade placard in her hands that said: “We did not come here to fail your system. 

Bangladeshi American Sayeef Salahuddin, a TSMC professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, has become a member of the inaugural technical advisory board of the US National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC).

On 3 January 2026, the Board of Control for Cricket in India issued a quiet directive - in doing so, it crossed a line that cricket has managed to maintain for over a century.

SOAS University of London will remain a beacon for the global study of Bangladesh, the region and the diaspora, a place where we speak and research and write freely and with a passion for knowledge.

Last week a deadly fire killed 16 workers at a textile factory in Bangladesh. Workers were locked in a building with poor fire and safety conditions. There was no fire safety clearance.

আজকাল, the Chowdhury Center’s e-Newsletter for Fall 2025 is out!! Please click this link to find out about all the exciting events that we have planned for this semester.

Cara Schulte, the 2024 Malini Chowdhury Fellow on Bangladesh Studies, has published a new report with Climate Rights International, My Body Is Burning: Climate Change, Extreme Heat, and Labor Rights in Bangladesh (July 2025).

The Daily Star Staff Reporter, Priyam Paul in conversation with the Co-editors of the Journal of Bangladesh Studies Dr. Farida Khan, Professor of Economics, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and Dr. Elora Shehabuddin, Professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Global Studies and Director, Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

In conversation with the Co-editors of the Journal of Bangladesh Studies Dr. Farida Khan, Professor of Economics, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and Dr. Elora Shehabuddin, Professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Global Studies and Director, Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

In October 2024, near the official residence of the chief advisor to Bangladesh's interim government, a simple sign stood out on a colorful, graffiti-splattered Dhaka wall.

Last month, young people in Bangladesh revolted against their government over a jobs quota bill that would have reserved 30 percent of public-sector jobs for family members of veterans of the 1971 war with Pakistan.