July 5, 2023.
ISN Bureau , Durgapur : May 3, marks the “World Press Day” as declared by the United Nations General Assembly. 5th July will be marked as “Bengal Digital Media Day” hereafter by the initiative of Bengal Digital Media Foundation (BDMF) to honor all digital media professionals of West Bengal. On Wednesday 5th July, a special delegation of the BDMF felicitated S. Arun Prasad, District Magistrate of Paschim Burdwan district and declared 5th July as “Bengal Digital Media Day”. The foundation took an oath to celebrate this red-letter day every year in activities of social welfare.
Led by President Manoj Kumar Singha, and Treasurer Ayan Mukherjee and former Treasurer and founder member of the BDMF Ganesh Chakraborty the delegation of prominent journalists from all digital media honored the District Magistrate of Paschim Bardhaman and District chief Election officer S. Arun Prasad and Additional District Magistrate Panicker Harishanker.
Manoj Kumar Singha, president of BDMF, said on this day, “Bengal Digital Media Foundation has been fighting for the recognition of all digital media journalists throughout West Bengal including Paschim Bardhaman for many years. Even after writing many letters to various departments of the state government, there was no result.
But a few days ago, West Bengal’s Diamond Harbor MP Abhishek Banerjee came to join the Naba jowar program of the AITMC in Durgapur. In that meeting, on behalf of the BDMF , we appealed to Abhishek Banerjee to recognize the digital media news journalists from the state government.
As per the guidance of the Hon’ble Member of Parliament, a written application was sent to the District Magistrate of Paschim Bardhaman on June 10, demanding the recognition of all digital media professionals of West Bengal including Bengal Digital Media journalists. The Honorable District Magistrate of Paschim Burdwan S. Arun Prasad forwarded the application form of BDMF to the higher authorities for permission. On the 30th of June, the State Election Commission informed all the district magistrates of West Bengal that from now on some of the print, electronic media as well as digital media professionals will be given government approved ‘media pass’ for the convenience of media coverage of the upcoming panchayat elections”.
Ganesh Chakraborty, the Chief Editor of industrialsunday.com, the former treasurer and founder member of Bengal Digital Media Foundation added, “I have been working in bardhaman.com along with my other journalistic assignments for more than 23 years. Till now there was no formal acknowledgement of this platform, though the technological advances and paradigm shift has brought the digital platform to the centre stage in the recent days. We have been fighting for the legitimacy of digital media for a long time. I felt a formalized initiative was necessary for the same and discussed it with my long-time friend Manoj Kumar Singha . And we decided to float the Bengal Digital Media Foundation as a formal platform to fight in unison for the movement to get a legitimate approval for the digital media. Both of us are the first to take the initiative to bring digital media journalists of Purba and Paschim Bardhaman together under the same banner. And the journey of BDMF began about 5 years ago on this day Today, we feel very proud to receive the official recognition of digital media journalists from all over the state for coverage of the panchayat polls in July .It is a success of all our struggles over the past two decades as our contributions have been officially acknowledged for the first time by the State Election Commission of West Bengal”.
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