Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud today said BNP now appears to have become a ‘failed party’ attributing the failure to its leadership and its Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in particular.

“I would like to tell Mirza Fakhrul to come out of the circle of failure and bring his party out of it (circle) too,” he told newsmen after attending a workshop at Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) in Dhaka.

Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), the national news agency, organized the workshop for its district correspondents with the assistance of PIB.

BSS Managing Director and Chief Editor Abul Kalam Azad presiding over the opening session while the agency’s Chief News Editor Anisur Rahman and correspondents’ representatives addressed it.

BSS National Desk Editor Anup Kumar Khastagir conducted the programme. BSS City Editor Madhusudan Mondal and Chief Reporter Tareq Al Naser were present, among others.

Referring to Mirza Fakhrul’s comment that Bangladesh is a failed state, the information minister said, “This comment is true for himself (Mirza Fakhrul) as well as his party… Bangladesh is now a successful country.”

“I’m really astonished for his (Fakhrul) comment. My concept about the BNP leader was high. I thought he is up-to-date with the current information and studies . . . But I am wrong,” said Hasan, also the publicity and publication secretary of the ruling Awami League.

The minister said the per capita income of the country is now around 2,000 US dollars which was only 540 dollar during the BNP regime. Bangladesh is one of the top five countries which maintain high GDP growth, he added.

“Does Mirza Fakhrul know the information?”, Hasan asked and said Bangladesh is now a role model before the world and the world leaders including the United Nations secretary general, the US president, the World Bank president and economists are praising the ongoing development in Bangladesh.

The AL leader said Bangladesh has now turned into a middle income country under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and “Bangladesh is now a food surplus country”.

The country is on the way of materializing the dream of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, he added.

In the workshop, the minister urged the journalists to work with the accountability to society. “We should work properly and bring diversity in work … we should write more investigative reports for the betterment of society,” he added.

Hasan said ‘time’ is so much ‘crucial’ for a news agency and it is more important in the present competitive field. If a reporter fails to send the news quickly, it will become useless for the reader as well as for the organization, he added.

“But, you should have to maintain quality of news, otherwise it would loss importance,” the minister said. Hasan urged the reporters to improve their reports and thereby enhance dignity of their organization.

Azad urged the BSS correspondents to perform their job with utmost sincerity. “Everyone should work keeping pace with the current era. But there will be no compromise with the quality of reports,” he added.