Prothom Alo marks 20th anniversary hosting special programme
Prothom Alo celebrated its 20th founding anniversary, hosting a special programme for its well-wishers and dignitaries at a city hotel on Friday.
The programme began in the evening at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon, honouring Rajshahi's Amzad Hossain who fights against child marriage and Bangladesh's first gold medal winner in International Mathematical Olympiad, Ahmed Zawad Chowdhury.
"We want to write success stories of country's people. In the same way, we want to let people know about the success stories of new initiatives, institutions and Bangladesh. And through this, we want to move forward," Prothom Alo editor Matiur Rahman told the audience.
The daily started its journey on 4 November, 1998.
Recalling the day, Matiur Rahman said, "We, a team of 104 young journalists, began our journey with the announcement of bringing out a courageous, liberal and independent newspaper and people of all walks supported us with their all."
Before his speech, the editor welcomed the gusts in the hotel as the programme started at 7:15pm through the rendition of ‘O Alor Pothojatri’ by singers Tahsan and Armeen Musa.
Managing editor Sajjad Sharif delivered a welcome speech, followed by screening of a documentary made by Redoan Rony on the teachers and students of ‘Alor Pathshala’, a school built by Prothom Alo Trust in a ‘char’ of the river Padma in Rajshahi.
The programme was attended by, among others, founder of BRAC Fazle Hasan Abed, educationist Rasheda K Chowdhury, Bangla Academy director general Professor Shamsuzzaman Khan, Rapid Action Battalion director general Benazir Ahmed, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia, Robi CEO Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, president of National Press Club Shafiqur Rahman, Bengal Group Chairman Abul Khair Litu, actresses Sarah Begum Kobori, and Suborna Mustafa.
Prothom Alo is the largest circulated daily in Bangladesh with around 6.6 million readers going through the newspaper every day, according to National Media Survey 2018. The survey is done by Kantar MRB, a UK-based research organisation that operates in 67 countries.
According to Google Analytics, one million people read the online edition of Prothom Alo (www.prothomalo.com) every day, making it the most popular Bangla website with a daily readership of 7.6 million.
As per Alexa, it is the number one Bangla website.
Its Facebook page (www.facebook.com/DailyProthomAlo) has around 13.9 million fans.
Prothom Alo is ranked 73rd among all the media outlets of the world in terms of followers.