Prothom Alo celebrates 22nd anniversary maintaining health guidelines

Prothom Alo has celebrated its 22nd founding anniversary through various programmes maintaining social distancing and health guidelines.

Although the programmes were toned down a bit this year due to the coronavirus situation, there was no shortage of enthusiasm in the programmes.

A get-together of the staff was cancelled this year, but the leading daily newspaper of Bangladesh celebrated the occasion by organising different programmes including virtual discussions.

Editor Matiur Rahman and other senior staff of Prothom Alo cut cakes and exchanged greetings with staff on different floors of its office in Karwan Bazar.

The anniversary celebration started with a surprise as staff received a special gift on behalf of the editor on 3 November. The gift package included a crest written ‘companion’ in it, a letter of appreciation, T-shirt, hand sanitizer, mask, snacks and fruits.

Besides, Prothom Alo Bondhushava members in 63 districts greeted local administration, police and civil surgeon officials with bouquets. They also handed over the officials letters of appreciation from the editor.

The staff of Prothom Alo started to throng its head office from the morning Wednesday. Male staff wore T-shirts while female staff donned red/maroon sarees. The celebration was initiated with cutting a cake. A total of 9 cakes were cut at different floors of the office.

Editor Matiur Rahman visited Prothom Alo’s office at Pragati Life Insurance building and the daily’s own building at Karwan Bazar at around 12:30pm. Managing editor Sajjad Sharif, associate editor Anisul Haque and feature editor Sumana Sharmin, high-ups of administration and human resource departments also accompanied the editor. They exchanged greetings with the staff, expressed gratitude for working amid the coronavirus situation and inspired them to work yet better in future.

The editor and others went to 13th floor of Pragati Bhaban first and exchanged pleasantries with staff of feature, photography, graphics, editing and English online departments.

They cut a cake on the floor.

Later, they visited the 12th floor which hosts the news department. Matiur Rahman wished good health and a prosperous life to all the staff.

Special news editor Shawkat Hossain said, “We’ll work better and take Prothom Alo forward. This is what we want.”

After that the senior staff of Prothom Alo cut a cake with the content team, IT team, and video team and North America edition staff at the 11th floor.

In the 8th floor, head of admin, Utpal Kumar Chakrabarty, thanked everyone wjo attended the programme. Adviser to Prothom Alo library, Lutful Haque, said Prothom Alo has crossed 22 years. We hope the newspaper will keep moving forward.

Editor Matiur Rahman said all the staff of human resources, administration and library department have been playing significant roles in taking the newspaper forward.

The editorial section, Kishore Alo, Bigyan Chinta, Chalti Ghotona, and Prothom Alo Trust sections are on the 7th floor of the building. After cutting a cake on that floor, Kishore Alo editor Anisul Haque said, “We hope, our newspaper will do better in the future.”

The senior staff of Prothom Alo passed some time with the members of digital team in the 2nd floor. There the editor said now it is the time for digital section. He also extolled the digital team for its recent performances.

Later, the editor and other senior staff went to the adjacent Prothom Alo office building and talked to the staff of advertisement, accounts, circulation, event, advertisement customer care departments, and support team and telephone operators and posed for photos with them.

He thanked all the staff for working, taking risks amid the novel coronavirus situation.

Prothom Alo’s security adviser Md Sazzadul Kabir said none of the security were infected with the novel virus.

Addressing the telephone operators, deputy editor Lazzat Enab Mohsi said we talk to the operators all the time but many of the staff are not acquainted with them in person. But we know almost all of their voices.

A part of the day-long programme completed with cutting cakes and taking selfies maintaining health guidelines due to the novel coronavirus situation.