Around Dhaka with Babala

In stark black-and-white images, Gazi Nafis Ahmed takes an intimate look at Bangladesh’s marginalized gay community.

Read the full story here.

First magazine for gays, lesbians launched in Bangladesh | NDTV.com

First LGBT magazine launched in Bangladesh.

Of River and Lost Lands by Sarker Protick

  These stunning images were captured by documentary photographer Sarker Protick, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After completed his bachelors in marketing, he studied photography at Pathshala- the South Asian institute of Photography. He later participated ‘New Media Journalism’ at the University of Virginia and ‘Documentary photography’ at University of Gloucestershire, UK. Softness of the light and stunning in its decay landscapes of Bangladesh reveal fragile beauty of the land. "At first the place seems abandoned. Drowned houses, broken structures, floating trees are all that remains. These are traces of life that was once here. Slowly I discover life in the villages. People who are still living here, many as refugee in others land. Over the years the river changed it’s course. While doing it, it has taken so many. When the monsoon arrives and the river runs fast. The lands get washed away and disappear. These are villages in the district Ishurdi. Padma, the largest waterway of Bangladesh flows right beside. Places I have photographed don’t exist any more. River erosion still continues with dire consequences for this land and community. "

Jannatul Mawa is a social activist-turned photographer who focuses on fighting exploitation and discrimination in the world. In this photo series “Close Distance,” she captures portraits of domestic maids in Dhaka, Bangladesh who are often hidden from view.

Straying From the Middle Way: Extremist Buddhist Monks Target Religious Minorities

The fault-lines of conflict are often spiritual, one religion chafing against another and kindling bloodletting contrary to the values girding each faith. Over the past year in parts of Asia, it is friction between Buddhism and Islam that has killed hundreds, mostly Muslims. The violence is being fanned by extremist Buddhist monks, who preach a dangerous form of religious chauvinism to their followers.

Yet as this week’s TIME International cover story notes, Buddhism has tended to avoid a linkage in our minds to sectarian strife:

“In the reckoning of religious extremism—Hindu nationalists, Muslim militants, fundamentalist Christians, ultra-Orthodox Jews—Buddhism has largely escaped trial. To much of the world, it is synonymous with nonviolence and loving kindness, concepts propagated by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, 2,500 years ago. But like adherents of any religion, Buddhists and their holy men are not immune to politics and, on occasion, the lure of sectarian chauvinism.

When Asia rose up against empire and oppression, Buddhist monks, with their moral command and plentiful numbers, led anticolonial movements. Some starved themselves for their cause, their sunken flesh and protruding ribs underlining their sacrifice for the laity. Perhaps most iconic is the image of Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese monk sitting in the lotus position, wrapped in flames, as he burned to death in Saigon while protesting the repressive South Vietnamese regime 50 years ago. In 2007, Buddhist monks led a foiled democratic uprising in Burma: images of columns of clerics bearing upturned alms bowls, marching peacefully in protest against the junta, earned sympathy around the world, if not from the soldiers who slaughtered them. But where does social activism end and political militancy begin? Every religion can be twisted into a destructive force poisoned by ideas that are antithetical to its foundations. Now it’s Buddhism’s turn.”

Over the past year in Buddhist-majority Burma, scores, if not hundreds, have been killed in communal clashes, with Muslims suffering the most casualties. Burmese monks were seen goading on Buddhist mobs, while some suspect the authorities of having stoked the violence—a charge the country’s new quasi-civilian government denies. In Sri Lanka, where a conservative, pro-Buddhist government reigns, Buddhist nationalist groups are operating with apparent impunity, looting Muslim and Christian establishments and calling for restrictions to be placed on the 9% of the country that is Muslim. Meanwhile in Thailand’s deep south, where a Muslim insurgency has claimed some 5,000 lives since 2004, desperate Buddhist clerics are retreating into their temples with Thai soldiers at their side. Their fear is understandable. But the close relationship between temple and state is further dividing this already anxious region.

A photojournalist was gang-raped in Mumbai, police said on Friday, evoking comparisons with a similar assault in New Delhi in December that led to nationwide protests and a revision of the country’s rape laws.

The attack on Thursday night triggered protests and an outcry on social media, with many users shocked that it took place in Mumbai, widely considered to be India’s safest city for women.

One man was arrested on Friday and 20 police teams were pursuing four men who had been identified, said Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh.

"Mumbai police will do its best to collect all the evidence - clinching evidence, scientific evidence - so that a fool-proof case is made out in the court, and they get maximum punishment," Singh said. "We will also request the government that this case be conducted in a fast-track court."

In rowdy scenes in the Rajya Sabha, opposition lawmakers accused the government of not doing enough to protect women, despite tougher sex crime laws brought in this year.

The victim, who is in her early twenties, was admitted to hospital in south Mumbai where she was in stable condition, a hospital official told Reuters by e-mail.

The attack took place shortly before sunset in an abandoned textile mill in Lower Parel, a gritty former industrial district that is now one of the city’s fastest-growing neighbourhoods of luxury apartments, malls and bars.

The woman was at the mill on an assignment with a male colleague. The pair were separated by the attackers and her colleague was tied up with a belt while she was assaulted, Singh said.

Several dozen mainly male supporters of the right-wing Shiv Sena political party gathered with flags and banners outside the police station where the case was filed. A further protest was called for later in the afternoon.

Women’s safety in India has been in the spotlight this year following the brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December, which led thousands of Indians to take to the streets in protest. The woman died of her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.

The trials of the four men and one juvenile accused of the December attack are expected to conclude within the next three weeks. The verdict on the juvenile suspect is set for Aug 31. Closing arguments in the trial of the four adult suspects started on Thursday.

Following public outcry over the Delhi attack, India introduced tougher rape laws in March, which include the death penalty for repeat offenders and for those whose victims were left in a “vegetative state”.

In contrast to Delhi, Mumbai has long been considered a safer place for women to travel alone, even at night.

"(Mumbai) has this sense of security … but these things make us feel that maybe we are not really that safe," said A. L. Sharada, director of Population First, a Mumbai-based NGO that works on women’s rights issues.

2 BD girls get married to each other!

Bangladesh collapse left many amputees

“It was the worst disaster in the history of the garment industry. When the Rana Plaza factory building crashed down in April, 1129 people were killed. But many others had to sacrifice their limbs to survive.

Arms and legs were trapped under the building rubble, forcing rescuers with no medical training to perform amputations on the spot to free the victims. No anesthesia was available. Some of the rescuers used butchers knives or hacksaws to cut through the flesh and save the trapped workers. Many of those freed are still recovering.

Bangladesh’s government and garment manufacturers are campaigning to close dangerous factories and to make safety a priority for the country’s most valuable export industry. But many in the government, the industry and the rescue workers said they would not be shocked if another terrible tragedy happened.”

(Photos by Kevin Frayer/AP)

1. Laboni, 21, who worked on the 4th floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 15, 2013. Laboni had her left amputated inside the rubble when she was rescued nearly 36 hours after the building collapsed.

2.  Labli, 25, who worked on the 2nd floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 15, 2013. Labli had her left leg amputated to free her from the rubble when she was rescued nearly 48 hours after the building collapsed.

3. Pakhi, 25, who worked on the 5th floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 14, 2013. Pakhi had both her legs amputated ito free her from the rubble when she was rescued nearly 72 hours after the building collapsed.

4. Aroti, 16, who worked on the 5th floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 15, 2013. Aroti had her right leg amputated in hospital when she was rescued from the rubble nearly 72 hours after the building collapsed.

5. Rikta, 27, who worked on the 3rd floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 15, 2013. Rikta had her right arm amputated inside the rubble when she was rescued nearly 72 hours after the building collapsed.

6. Sonia, 18, who worked on the 6th floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 15, 2013. Sonia had her right leg amputated to free her from the rubble when she was rescued nearly 48 hours after the building collapsed.

7. Mariyam, 30,who worked on the 6th floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 15, 2013. Mariyam had her right arm amputated to free her from the rubble when she was rescued nearly 72 hours after the building collapsed.

8. Anna, 16, who worked on the 5th floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait with her prosthetic right arm at Enam Medical College in Savar, near Dhaka on June 15, 2013. Anna had her right arm amputated to free her from the rubble when she was rescued nearly 48 hours after the building collapsed.

Street art in Bangladesh - Tiger leaps on kid.

Kickstarter Update #5: Designing Dhaka’s Bus Map

Dear backers,

Sorry it’s been so long since you’ve heard from us. We have been working hard trying to translate all the data that we collected into something simple to understand and excessively useful for bus riders in Dhaka. We started with the fairly complicated map of the bus lines - already clustered into fewer lines based on their general direction e.g. north-south, east-west and mapped topologically to the exact geographic coordinates of Dhaka. When we showed this prototype to our partners, they quickly and strongly told us that we needed to make something simpler, something more like a New York City subway map.

So we went back to work and came up with our almost-printable map below. Since we want to make sure this map works for our intended audience of bus riders in Dhaka, we are going to wait to hear from our on-the-ground print distribution before we show you the complete first version. We have been busy preparing for the soft launch in Dhaka for the next few weeks but there have been the usual hartals (city-wide protests that keep most people off the roads) and the unusual natural disasters (20 people died from a tornado southeast of Dhaka).

We did want to tell you a little more about this design itself, in case you had any feedback. First, we are calling this version alpha and being clear that this map is only 75% correct. We are opening a sign-up list to gather a local flock of evangelists to help bring the map to 99% and to help us keep updating the map in the future, since the system is likely going to change.

Second, we moved toward a more diagrammatic rendition of the bus network that would primarily display the entirety of the system in relation to the key locations in the city, as opposed to geographic accuracy. (Eddie Jabbour, designer of the NYC Kickmap, has a great read on the differences between topographic and diagrammatic versions of the New York City subway map).We did do some mental map experiments in Dhaka and tried to mimic a bit of how people from Dhaka saw their city (thanks Kevin Lynch from MIT!). Based on these mental maps, the team felt that topographic accuracy was less important, and people would understand the system more clearly based on labeled location names. A diagrammatic approach provided far more flexibility in terms of spacing lines and labels for readability.

Third, while we would’ve loved to use the official route numbers, we found that not every route had a number and those that did, rarely had them on the buses themselves so they were not always known to riders. Instead, we used roman numerals (instead of the Bangla numerals in which the official route numbers are listed) to re-number and re-cluster the system. This perhaps took us the longest but we are hoping this will make it easier for someone to quickly understand the many lines moving through the city.

Finally we, designed this map to print at A3 size (a little larger than a tabloid sized sheet) and be foldable so that it could be easily fit into one’s pocket.

We will keep you posted on how the initial distribution goes and thanks for all your patience and support! Right now, the Kewkradong team is busy translating all the English labels into Bangla and coordinating with the local printers.Once the initial launch happens in Dhaka, we can also begin to fulfill our supporter rewards for you all and begin concepting designs for the other elements of the bus infostructure so that they relate to the design of the bus map.

FIPRESCI JUROR PETER WINTONICK, 24th March 2013

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