Anti-tobacco campaigners Progga, ATMA award four journalists

Anti-tobacco campaigners Progga and ATMA have awarded four journalists ahead of the ‘World No Tobacco Day’ on May 31.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 28 May 2015, 06:59 PM
Updated : 28 May 2015, 06:59 PM

The winners are Daily Janakantha’s Staff Reporter Hamid-uz-Zaman Mamun, Daily Star’s Lalmonirhat Correspondent S Dilip Roy, Sylhet-based Daily Jalalabad’s Staff Reporter Abu Bakar Siddique and NTV’s Senior Correspondent Ashiqur Rahman Chowdhury.

Jhenaidah-3 MP Nobi Newaz, attending the programme as chief guest, assured the organisers of pitching for increased tobacco tax in Parliament.

“The media will have to play a powerful role in preventing illegal tobacco trade,” he said. “This attempt will bring success to the tobacco control movement.”

Newaz said tobacco killed about six million people, 0.6 million of them indirect smokers, worldwide every year.

“If we don’t take proper initiatives to curb the deaths, they will reach 8 million by 2030.

“Eighty percent of them will take place in third world countries like Bangladesh,” he added.