Bangla Bloggers’ siege Home Ministry for murdered journalist couple

Dhaka, Bangladesh. 15th May 2012 — Police set up a barricade to stop journalists advancing forward as they declared a ‘Home Ministry siege programme’ demanding justice for the journalist couple Sagar and Runi. — Journalists demonstrate in front of the Secretariat demanding justice for the journalist couple Sagar and Runi who were gunned down in their own bedroom. (C:Demotix)

Crossing various hurdles, the Bangla bloggers conducted their programme of singing protest songs in public. Comments by the police commissioner that “permissions will be required”, not allowing the required temporary electricity connection at the protest venue, and even sudden rains during part of the evening, nothing could stop the bloggers, journalists, students and ordinary citizens from showing solidarity and participating in singing the protest songs

Bloggers have once again taken to the street, demanding justice for the murdered journalist couple Sagar Sarwar and his wife Meherun Runi.. On 11th May, 2012, they organized a protest in front of the public library in Shahbagh, Dhaka. This was their fourth protest gathering. In the early hours of 11th February, 2012, the couple was found brutally murdered in their West Rajabajar apartment in Dhaka.

At the end of the day’s event, the next steps and upcoming protest programmes were announced. Among the future protests being planned by journalists and bloggers are the following:

1. 20th May to 15th June – Public meetings at all the media houses
2. 5th June – March to the Parliament and submit a memorandum to the Speaker of the House, demanding arrest and trial of the killers of Sagar-Runi
3. 26th June – Protest march towards the Prime Minister’s Office.
4. If the administration still fails to deliver justice, all journalists across the country will stop work and undertake a ‘pen down’ programme.

Three months have passed since the murder and till date, the police have been unsuccessful in discovering any clues or leads that would help them to solve the case. The Bangladesh High Court has expressed dissatisfaction with the progress (or lack of it) of the Detective Branch (DB) of police investigating the murder. The case has since then been transferred to the anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit - Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). The bodies have already been exhumed for a repeat postmortem. However, till date, there has been little progress in the investigation.

Samay, August 15 : Old lady of Boru Bunder to take on Aveek Sarkar in Bengal

Shine Jacob writes in Business Standard:

Set to launch its first Bengali daily by year-end.

It may well be the clash of the titans in West Bengal’s media industry. The country’s largest media conglomerate, Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL), also known as the Times group &  ” The Old Lady Of Bori Bunder” , is set to battle it out in the regional media space with Aveek Sarkar’s family-owned Anandabazar Patrika (ABP). There were speculations that the Bengali newspaper would be named Samay and launched by August 15. The hiring process had been initiated, though the group had not finalised on who would be the editor.

According to sources close to the development, the Times group is planning to launch a Bengali newspaper by the end of this year. While The Times of India is the largest broadsheet daily in the country, Anandabazar Patrika is the largest Bengali newspaper. According to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures, Anandabazar Patrika has a circulation of nearly 1,250,000, while its nearest competitor, Bartaman, has a circulation of 534,000 copies. Other major competitors in the vernacular space are Aajkaal, Sangbad Pratidin, Ganashakti, Sakalbela, Ekdin and NEWZ Bangla.

The plan to launch a Bengali daily is considered to be a move by the Times Group to position itself against ABP in the vernacular space. In Bengali, TOI  has two magazines, Samay and Udita. The Times Group has a strong presence in regional markets, with dailies like Navbharat Times and Sandhya Times (evening tabloid) in Hindi, Maharashtra Times in Marathi and Vijaya Karnataka in Kannada.

Anandabazar Patrika, founded in 1922 by Prafulla Chandra Sarkar, is the largest read Bengali newspaper, with a readership of more than six million, according to Indian Readership Survey reports.

Related articles

• ‘the people of West Bengal will turn their back on her’ (indologygoa.wordpress.com)
• Japani Bodhu: Immortalising the Bengali ‘voice’ of Bose’s Azad Hind Radio in Tokyo (indologygoa.wordpress.com)

Japani Bodhu: Immortalising the Bengali ‘voice’ of Bose’s Azad Hind Radio in Tokyo

Writer, Scholar and noted Historian Surajit Dasgupta wrote on his blog http://surajit-dasgupta.blogspot.in:

Bongo-Mohilar Japan Jatra: Hariprobha Takeda (1912)

A documentary film on my aunt, Hariprobha Takeda, a remarkable woman who was far ahead of her times, made by a Bangladeshi filmmaker, Tanvir Mokammel (The River Named Modhumati, Lalon, Quiet Flows The River Chitra, Lalsalu, etc.) premieres in India in June. Here is a news item from The Daily Star. 

From a nondescript woman in Dhaka to Tokyo, where she read news in Bangla on radio for Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose‘s Azad Hind Fauj, travelling in the dead of night every day risking her life through bomb-ravaged streets of Tokyo during the Second World War.

That is the exceptional story of Hariprobha Basu Mallik, who married a Japanese entrepreneur Wemon Takeda, and travelled to Tokyo in 1912, and whose life has been recreated on the celluloid by eminent Bangladeshi director Tanvir Mokammel in his latest documentary, “Japani Bodhu” (The Japanese Wife) set to be premiered in Dhaka next month.

Born in 1890, Hariprobha would have remained a largely forgotten figure but for her “Bongo Mohilar Japan Jatra”, a memoir of her journey to Japan in 1912, considered the first book on that country by any woman from the subcontinent. The book was first published from Dhaka in 1915, Mokammel told The Daily Star.

Read the full posting by Surajit Dasgupta: Bongo-Mohilar Japan Jatra: Hariprobha Takeda