UNESCO Dhaka

Nazrana Chowhdury of NTV, one of the 12 private satellite television channels in Bangladesh, has won the UNESCO Bangladesh Journalism Award 2010 for the best investigative report. The report identifies some mistakes in the primary and secondary level text books.

Introduced in 2008 by UNESCO Dhaka, the award is already one of the most sought-after and prestigious journalism awards in Bangladesh. UNESCO has been conferring the award in investigative journalism in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) held on May 3 each year.

Abul Kalam Azad, Minister for Information and Cultural Affairs, handed over the award that carried a cash prize of Tk 50,000 and certificate to the winner at a ceremony held at a city hotel on 3 May 2010. The ceremony organised jointly by UNESCO Dhaka and UNESCO National Commission for UNESCO (BNCU) was attended by over 100 colleagues from the media sector who were eager to find out this year’s winners of UNESCO journalism award.

The award giving ceremony opened with three senior journalists discussing the issue of press freedom situation in Bangladesh. The discussion revolved around the security of journalists and the state’s apathy to violence against journalists underscored by its failure to bring perpetrators to justice responsible for killing at least 6 journalists over the last decade in Bangladesh. The discussants raised the issue of successive governments’ propensity to award media licenses to those who share their political beliefs, which, they thought, does not help the cause of media freedom.

The Minister for Information responded with a vow to take up the issue of seeing trials of journalists’ killers through. “We are committed to press freedom. We believe a free press can help us rectify our wrong moves,” he said. He also mentioned the establishment of the Right To Information (RTI) Act which he observed would reinforce media’s role in serving their audience in a more meaningful way.

Derek Elias, Officer-in-Charge, UNESCO Dhaka, pointed out the challenges ahead in implementing the RTI legislation. He suggested the stakeholders to be mindful of three areas – capacity building of public officials and developing an efficient information management system so as to comply with requests for information, and creating public awareness of their right to know – to enable people benefit from the law.

Three others – Altab Hossain of the daily Ji Jai Din, Emaran Hossain and Ershad Kamol of The Daily Star – also won honourary awards and bagged a check of Tk 10,000 and a certificate each.

Nurul Islam Nahid, Minister for Education and Chairman of UNESCO National Commission, presided over the ceremony with, Syed Ataur Rahman, Secretary, Ministry of Education were present as Guest of Honour.