Features

Women drive fast train to Mecca as Saudi workforce evolves

Driver Tharaa Ali takes her seat at the helm of a high-speed train ferrying pilgrims to Mecca, a beneficiary of conservative Saudi Arabia’s bid to employ its booming female workforce.

‘Constant danger’: Life after leprosy, a long neglected disease

Shawdesh desk: Dan Izzett has lived with leprosy’s effects on his body for 70 years, and has lost much to what he calls an “ancient, fascinating, very unkind disease”. The

Winter Pitha: Heartwarming roadside delicacies

There is hardly any person who has come to mega city Dhaka from a rural area but does not have a sweet memory of eating pitha, steamed or fried cake,

Char Women Challenge 4IR

Shawdesh Desk: “Earlier I haven’t seen any automated single-needle sewing machine but now we are operating six types of multi-needle machines to make many innovative products,” said Najma Begum, a

Global firms help Myanmar’s military make weapons: Report

Myanmar’s military is producing a vast range of weapons to use against its own people thanks to supplies from companies in at least 13 countries, former top UN officials say.

An unseen presence: Fear of tiger attack grips 6 villages along Sundarbans

Shawdesh desk: The residents of six villages near the Sundarbans are literally living in fear for their lives as a hundred footprints of two tigers were spotted in Sonatala village

The covert winter wave of Covid-19

Shawdesh Desk: In late October 2022, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts around the world began to notice an unsettling trend. As the epidemiologist Adam Kucharski explained in a Twitter thread,

Iran: Jailed activist Qolian describes brutality in letter

Shawdesh Desk: One of Iran’s most prominent female activists has described how confessions are forced out of prisoners, in a letter written inside a notorious jail. Sepideh Qolian has been