BSS
  20 Sep 2021, 19:18

Book on 'Concert for Bangladesh' launched on its 50th anniversary

   DHAKA, Sept 20, 2021 (BSS) - ICT Division has launched coffee-table-book 
titled "The Country That Lived-Fifty Years of Freedom and the Concert for 
Bangladesh" on the occasion of the golden jubilee of Bangladesh independence 
and Concert for Bangladesh.

   State Minister for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division 
Zunaid Ahmed Palak served as the chief adviser in preparing the book while 
ICT Division Senior Secretary NM Zeaul Alam, LICT Project Policy Adviser Sami 
Ahmed and senior journalist Ajit Kumar Sarker are advisers and editors of the 
book. 

   Apex Data Management and IT cooperated with ICT Division in preparing the 
book.

   Apex DMIT Chairman Mike Kazi and CEO Jara Jabin Mahbub handed over a copy 
of the book to the State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak at ICT Tower in 
the city's Agargaon area today.

   LICT Project Policy Adviser Sami Ahmed was present on the occasion.

   The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by 
former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi 
Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on August 01 (Sunday) in 
1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international 
awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from Bangladesh during the period 
of the country's Liberation War, according to wikipedia.

   The concerts were followed by a bestselling live album, a boxed three-
record set and Apple Films' concert documentary which opened in cinemas in 
the spring of 1972.

   The event was the first-ever benefit of such a magnitude, and featured a 
super group of performers that included Harrison, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo 
Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band 
Badfinger. 

   In addition, Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan-- both of whom had ancestral roots 
in Bangladesh-- performed an opening set of Indian classical music.

  The concerts were attended by a total of 40,000 people, and the initial 
gate receipts raised close to US$250,000 for Bangladesh relief, which was 
administered by UNICEF.