Bangladesh News

The usual summer-time calm of the world’s longest beach was broken yesterday with the vibrant gathering of thousands of youths pledging to make Bangladesh a developed country.

With the Bay of Bengal in front, they pledged to materialise the vision of a prosperous Bangladesh for which the heroic sons of the soil laid down their lives in crucial times like 1952, 1971 and 1990.

The month-long campaign “Bodle Jao Bodle Dao” (change yourself, change the society) of Bangla daily Prothom Alo came to an end on the Cox’s Bazar beach yesterday with a unique exhibition of around 2,500 banners held end to end, stretching six kilometres, and containing around 2 lakh pledges of people across the country.

Prothom Alo and its Bandhusabha (Prothom Alo friends’ club) organised the one-and-a-half-hour-long exhibition that began around 3:30pm.

Following the national anthem at 4:30pm, a short programme was held where former chief adviser to a caretaker government Habibur Rahman spoke.

He hoped that with such a response from the young generation, the nation would be able to materialise its dreams.

“Lots of people made many pledges during the campaign and we have to respect what other people pledged,” he said.

Welcoming people at the programme Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman said, “We worked for the last 10 years with the slogan ‘Prothom Alo is with what is good’ but now we have changed this and our new slogan is ‘Change yourself, change the society’ since we believe that nothing can be changed unless we change ourselves.”

Scientist and author Prof Mohammad Zafar Iqbal administered the oath for change at the programme.

Over 10,000 people, mostly students from different parts of the country, took part in the exhibition of banners containing pledges collected from people of the country since May 21.

Members of the Bandhusabha and other participants started arriving at the beach city early yesterday morning. People of different walks of life including renowned writers, artists and celebrities joined the programme.

Among the people who participated in the programme were educationist Zillur Rahman Siddiqui, writer Syed Shamsul Haque, poet Nirmalendu Gun, cartoonist Rafiqunnabi, writer Anisul Haque, businessman and TV personality Annisul Haque, The Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam, TV celebrity Hanif Sanket, actors Abul Hayat, Ilias Kanchan, Bipasha Hayat, singers Kanak Chanpa, Samina Chowdhury, Fahmida Nabi, Shafin Ahmed, Mahmuduzzaman Babu, SI Tutul, Asif, Dhaka University teacher Asif Nazrul and model Nobel.

Fatema Tabassum, a class-VI student of Baitush Sharaf Jabbaria Academy of Cox’s Bazar, came with 300 students of her institute holding a banner. She said she believes that some changes will come through this campaign.

Sabuj Pal, a class-IX student of Kurushkul High School, echoed the same views.

Visitors who went to the beach were seen looking at the pledges with interest. Many of them also took part in the exhibition by holding the banners up.

A number of the pledges drew a lot of attention of visitors. One of those was, “I will try to persuade all to switch off gas stoves immediately after using them” written by Limon of Kushtia. Rickshaw-puller Joinal of Gaibandha wrote, “I will not charge passengers high fare”. Another person wrote, “I will try to reach my office on time and stop using the office telephone for personal purpose.”

Talking to The Daily Star Nirmalendu Gun hoped that the campaign would have a positive impact on the young and fresh who always try to do something different.

Ilias Kanchon said, “Efforts of many have gone in vain but we have to keep faith in the future generation who will have a lot of things to do for country.”

Abdus Salam, who went to the beach with his family from Dhaka, termed the initiative a unique one and said the young generation should take a more active role in the social movement this way.

Different private television channels including Channel i, ATN Bangla and ntv telecasted the programme live.