It's ‘Digital Bangladesh’, says an elated Inu

Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu clicked on a link on Sunday to launch Bangladesh’s first news website for children to be delivered by 10-17 year-old journalists.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 31 March 2013, 06:46 AM
Updated : 2 April 2013, 08:50 AM

He was very pleased to find an image of the inauguration ceremony already on the website.

An elated minister said, “This is digital Bangladesh!”

Hasanul Haque Inu was present at the launching ceremony of hello.bdnews24.com held at the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in Dhaka.

Children and adolescent journalists aged between 10-17 years will gather and deliver news on the website specially-designed to target young readers. The landmark move signals the inception of a new era in the country’s news service.

The country’s first internet newspaper, bdnews24.com, is running the website in partnership with UNICEF, the United Nations’ children agency.

The minister said, “Opposition leaders had mocked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina when she said she would build a digital Bangladesh. 'You will make a digital cow,' they said.”

“We have answered them with our work,” said Inu.

The minister, also President of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, said that this goal cannot be achieved in this age of information without the knowledge of ‘new and modern’ technologies.

”Information are not products, they pertain to societal matters. You will have to deliver news in accordance with state, history, heritage and solidarity”, he said addressing the young journalists.

He hoped ‘Hello’ will play a definitive role in developing the country, society and democracy.

The Information Minister said media was the ‘mirror’ of democracy. “It is the duty of the state and the people of the media to keep it clean. Democracy will be damaged if it (the media) becomes tainted.

He also urged them to present the condition of fellow children who hail from diverse and underprivileged backgrounds to make up for nearly half of the country’s total population.

Inu said the young journalists were representatives of deprived children in society. “It is your (children journalists) duty to project the condition of their (deprived children) sorrows and sufferings.”
Eminent botanist Dwijen Sharma, Jahangirnagar University teacher Hayat Mahmud, Noted actor Khairul Alam Shobuj, Information Secretary Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, bdnews24.com Editor-in-Chief Toufique Imrose Khalidi, its Social Affairs Editor Baby Maudud and representative of UNICEF Bangladesh Pascal Villeneuve were present, among others, in the opening ceremony at the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in Dhaka.