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BSS-40
BSS-BOARD-MEETING
New BSS board holds its first meeting
DHAKA, Sept 10, 2020 (BSS) – The newly formed Board of Directors of national news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) today held its maiden meeting at its office in Purana Paltan with its Chairman and former Dhaka University (DU) vice-chancellor Professor Dr AAMS Arefin Siddique in the chair.
BSS Managing Director and Chief Editor Abul Kalam Azad conducted the meeting as the member-secretary of the 13-member board, constituted on July 15, comprising senior journalists and editors of different mainstream media and officials representing different ministries.
The meeting reviewed the functioning of the national news agency and its development initiatives and took some decisions to upgrade the BSS performance and smoothen its functioning.
It began with adoption of an obituary references for immediate past BSS Board chairman Rahat Khan, former managing director and chief editor Debapriya Barua, former managing editor Shahriar Shahid and former BSS Board chairman Golam Rahman’s wife Nayeem Ara Hossain.
The members who joined the meeting stood in solemn silence for one minute as a mark of profound sympathy to the deceased BSS journalists and others who died of the COVID-19 infections in the past several months.
The meeting also paid rich tributes to the memories of distinguished persons at home and abroad including India’s former President Pranab Mukherjee.
The government constituted the board for the state-run news agency on July 15 with Dr Arefin as its chair while he previously taught for decades as a faculty of DU’s Mass Communication and Journalism Department.
The members who joined the meeting in person and through virtual media as representatives of different government offices were information ministry joint secretary (press) SM Mahfuzul Haque, finance ministry joint secretary (Budget and Planning) Nusrat Jabin Banu, director general of external publicity wing of the foreign ministry Samia Halim and Principal Information Officer to the government Surath Kumar Sarker.
The members who joined the meeting representing the media were Managing Director of ’71 Media Ltd Mozammel Haque and BSS city editor Madhusudan Mandol as the representative of the journalists and staff of the agency.
The Chairman and BSS Managing Director joined the meeting in person along with Mahfuzul Haque, Surath Kumar Sarker and Madhusudan Mandol while others were connected through the virtual media.
BSS/ASG/SRH/TAN/1908 hrs