Being a leading newspaper of Bangladesh, Prothom Alo has never failed to surprise us by their amazing events and social activities. As they have turned eighteen on November 4th this year, they surely deserved a grand celebration and they didn’t want to miss the opportunity. On November 25th morning, the Bangla Academy premises witnessed a grand event for the eighteenth anniversary of PROTHOM ALO titled “Pathak Utshab-Esho Atharoy”. The theme of the celebration “Strength, Inspiration, Dream and Love” reminded us about the poem of Sukanta Bhattacharya “Atharo Bochor Boyosh”, where this age is described as an unstoppable force.
From the very beginning of the Ceremony at 6:30 am, the Bangla Academy premises was crowded with people of all ages who took part in the celebration with celebrities like Joya Ahsan, Ferdous Ahmed, Shok, Arifin Shuvo, Safa Kabir, Afsal Hossain and popular bands like Artcell, Miles alongside with Bangladeshi classical baul singers and notable persons like Anisul Haque and writer Abul Moksud. There was a special program for paying tribute to Faraz Hassan. Every page of Prothom Alo such as Sports, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Science and Tech had setup their own stalls separately but the center of attraction of the whole festival was the stall setup by Prothom Alo magazine BIGGAN CHINTA.
As the main theme of the November version of this magazine was robot, they wanted to entertain the visitors in a different way. The stall was decorated in a very educative way and was under the guidance of Munir Hasan, who was also present at the stall with some authors. They, along with some topic writers of the magazine, supported by BRAC University, showcased some amazing robots created by enthusiastic engineering students of Robotics Club of BRAC University shortly known as ROBU.
The visitors were excited to take selfies with the Wall-E. The Chondrobot 2 of BRAC University was the main eye catcher for those who knew about its success in various competitions like NASA Lunabotics Mining competition 2012. The SOCCERBOT also grabbed the attention of many visitors.
The environment turned similar to a real life football match as visitors of all ages were curious to lay their hands on this amazing robot match. Some dedicated volunteers of these clubs were always ready to provide any sort of information to the visitors about their invention. Along with the magazine, ROBU also organized some entertaining programs like checkerboard and science based quiz. A model of the first experimental nano-satellite, BRAC ONNESHA of a Bangladeshi university was also displayed.
At 7:00 pm the grand event finally came to an end with cultural performances. By holding such a grand event, this Bangladeshi daily newspaper didn’t only give us a glimpse of their past glory and vision to the future but also provided the visitors an opportunity to meet their favorite personas and spend a memorable day with their friends and family in this open green festive atmosphere.