Suborna Akther Laboni

West Asia is burning again as the US-Iran conflict takes new turns. The heat of the conflict has reached the queues for fuel in Dhaka’s filling stations, where a new class of working poor is born in real time. Photo Credit: Shutterstock The first thing Mohammad Rifat Hossain did after driving all night last Friday was not go home to his family. Instead, Mohammad Rifat went to a petrol pump. He had heard that Sonar Bangla filling station was dispensing octane, so he went there.

Who decided what the new Bangladesh would look like? And were the women who built it in the room when that decision was made? Bangladesh climbed 75 places on the Global Gender Gap Index in a single year. Seven women made it to a parliament of 300. Both of these things are true. There is a woman somewhere in Bangladesh right now who has never heard of the World Economic Forum.