Earlier when Awami League president Hasina handed over the demands on behalf of the 14-party alliance to Iajuddin Ahmed, one of the demand suggested closing down of private media like radio and television channels during the election that came in existence in the last five years. I will rephrase it for simplicity and say the suggestion was to close down all private media that flourished during the past BNP government rule. This may sound absurd but I can see the concern of neutrality that brought up this demand.

This is tricky context as media development in Bangladesh in the last five years is far from comparison to the remainder of the nation’s media history whether it is television, radio or printed media. The standard of Bangladesh mainstream media is nothing short of the standard of many developed nations. I think there should be zero compromise with the demand to close down private media during election when the CTG starts the election reform negotiations. There maybe valid neutrality concern; however, without going into measuring the neutrality level - compared to only choice of a state run television station (BTV) that we had, the mainstream private television channels are light years more neutral now. This is ridicule even suggest this when for most living outside of Bangladesh, the private satellite channels have become the primary source of news these days. If the concern still remains, let’s not forget that there are more than a few such channels now and people aren’t fools to be able to decipher from different viewpoint if it exists in the first place. Thoughts/Wrangle?