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Best of BS Opinion: Patching roads, not rerouting paths
Have you ever noticed there's a kind of optimism in repair work? The street is cracked, the foundation crumbles. The older cement pieces long gave way, cracked, uneven, almost forgotten. But someone is out there laying new bricks, hopeful that the next layer will hold. Today's stories speak to that quiet but persistent hope, of fixing broken systems, salvaging old promises, and forging ahead on damaged ground. Whether in politics, trade, law, or narrative, the road forward is uneven but we need to build anyway. Let's dive in.
Take Bangladesh. In the name of reform, its interim government is simply laying old bricks with new slogans. Mohammed Yunus's regime, born out of street protests against Sheikh Hasina, is now banning her party and splintering the democratic space even further. The economy teeters as investor confidence shrinks and India slams the trade door shut. And yet, New Delhi's own diplomacy has been marked by inconsistency, first embracing Hasina's iron grip, now sulking in silence, highlights our first editorial. Rebuilding trust will take more than strategic silence; it'll need a path paved with honesty, accountability, and open dialogue.
Closer home, a university professor is under arrest for suggesting that we match symbolic applause with real protections. Ali Khan Mahmudabad's case exposes how easily our institutions treat cautionary critique as hostility, notes our second editorial. The irony? His words about unity have been twisted into grounds for criminal charges, while louder, divisive voices walk free. In the government's zeal to control the narrative, it has cracked the very bricks it claims to protect.
Meanwhile, India's trade tools are turning on their own. As Laveesh Bhandari writes, Quality Control Orders, designed to filter out subpar imports, are becoming stealth weapons against competition. Rather than lifting domestic capability, they're shielding big players, bruising small ones, and denying consumers the variety and affordability they deserve.
And if we peek into insolvency law, the cracks run deep. Rajeswari Sengupta unpacks the Bhushan Power and Steel case, where the Supreme Court's liquidation order has thrown five years of resolution into the bin. Instead of building faith in the system, institutional lapses have left investors watching their bricks crumble.
Even storytelling isn't immune. Chintan Girish Modi's review of The Storypreneur's Playbook by Nitin Babel and Prateek Roy Chowdhury, offers a hero's journey for entrepreneurs, but one where most of the heroes are men, and the path feels too clean, too narrow, for today's complex terrain.
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New Indian Express
2 hours ago
- New Indian Express
Mathura district administration offers luxury flats to temple priests amid corridor project opposition
LUCKNOW: As the survey of residences and shops in the 22 Kunj Galis (narrow lanes) leading to the Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan continues, 30 per cent of it already completed, the Mathura district administration has prepared an elaborate plan to rehabilitate the sevayats, the Goswamis, who have been openly opposing the Banke Bihari Corridor project. The plan includes relocating the sevayats to Rukmani Vihar in Vrindavan. The Goswami community, comprising hereditary priests, has been performing religious and priestly duties at the Banke Bihari temple for centuries. The Supreme Court recently gave the green light to the Banke Bihari Corridor, an ambitious initiative aimed at easing crowd congestion and enhancing the overall pilgrimage experience around the revered shrine. Following this, the state government brought in an ordinance to create a Trust to run the temple and oversee the development of the proposed corridor. After a visit by Awanish Kumar Awasthi, the special advisor to the Chief Minister, to Vrindavan on June 6, the project gained momentum. The Mathura Vrindavan Development Authority (MVDA) is working on a two-pronged strategy: first, conducting a survey of Kunj Galis comprising 286 houses and shops, and second, accelerating the rehabilitation of residents from 188 houses to new luxury flats at Rukmani Vihar and Sunrakh Bangar. The administration hopes that offering better accommodation will help pacify the sevayats.


United News of India
2 hours ago
- United News of India
Former Bangladesh PM urges party members to unite people against Yunus' ‘illegal' government
Dhaka, June 12 (UNI) Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged party leaders and activists to stand by the people, unite them, and launch a robust movement to oust the 'illegal' interim government led by 'conspirator and mob king', Chief Advisor Mohammed Yunus. In her latest audio message, the 77-year-old Awami League president called Yunus, his aides, and student coordinators criminals, accusing them of plundering public funds, killing Awami League members, and looting their homes and businesses. She alleged that the leaders of the so-called Anti-Discrimination Movement are now ironically fostering discrimination across the country, promoting the rampant rise of Islamic extremism and eroding its political fabric, reports the party's media agency Daily Republic. Sheikh Hasina noted that the anti-quota movement remained peaceful until July 15, but thereafter, protesters began attacking police, torching government buildings, and blocking roads. Accusing the SAD members of targeting police and military personnel, she highlighted her administration's work in domestic security, stating that it necessary actions to protect lives and property. 'We did nothing wrong.' She also slammed her rival party - the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by ex-PM Khaleda Zia - for engaging in looting and terrorism and condemning the Jamaat-e-Islami for murders and cutting tendons. Sheikh Hasina firmly stated that she never agreed to 'sell out the country to foreigners.' Stating that she never once agreed to sell out the country's Saint Martin Island or allow a military base in the Bay of Bengal, she said 'I could have come to power in 2001 if I had agreed to sell gas. I gave shelter to 10 lakh Rohingyas on humanitarian grounds. 'I did not want conflict with the Myanmar government and did not allow insurgency and militancy using our land. Is this my crime?' She further alleged that Yunus, his advisers, and coordinators would eventually flee the country, but those responsible for looting and killing would face justice. She criticised Yunus for failing to hold accountable those who killed police and Awami League members, instead granting them indemnity. UNI ANV SSP
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Business Standard
3 hours ago
- Business Standard
In UK, Yunus says no direct communication with British PM
Bangladesh interim government Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has said that he has had no direct communication with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in connection with the recovery of stolen money allegedly under the previous Hasina regime in Dhaka. Downing Street sources indicated that no formal meeting had been agreed during the Chief Adviser's visit to London this week. Yunus told The Financial Times' newspaper that the UK has a moral responsibility to assist Bangladesh in tracing and retrieving funds stolen by the previous regime and allegedly funnelled into Britain. I have no direct conversation with him, Yunus told the Financial Times' with reference to Starmer. I have no doubt he would support us. This is stolen money We need the support from the people of Great Britain, he said. The 84-year-old Nobel Laureate took over as the head of the interim government after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in a massive student-led protest in Bangladesh in August last year. She is believed to be living in exile in India since then. In December, an anti-graft panel in Bangladesh had launched an investigation against Hasina and her family in connection with the allegations of embezzling USD 5 billion in the Rooppur nuclear power plant. Yunus, who is currently in the UK on a four-day visit, is on a mission to bring out more enthusiastic support, the Chief Adviser added. Hasina's niece and Labour party MP in UK, Tulip Siddiq, had resigned as a minister in the Starmer Cabinet in the wake of allegations against her family benefitting from Hasina's Awami League regime. She has denied any wrongdoing and had sought her own meeting with Yunus during his UK visit. This is a legal issue a legal process. It's not personal involving me, said Yunus, refusing any meeting with Siddiq. On June 1, Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal indicted Hasina, in absentia, and two others on several charges, including mass murder, for their alleged role in the violent crackdown on student-led protests last year.