Matiur Rahman (born 2 January 1946) is the editor of ''

Prothom Alo ''The Daily Prothom Alo'' ( bn, প্রথম আলো) is a daily newspaper in Bangladesh, published from Dhaka in the Bengali language. It is the largest circulated newspaper in Bangladesh. According to National Media Survey 2018, conducte ...

'', the second largest circulated

Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken o ...

daily in Bangladesh. He is the recipient of the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the journalism, literature and creative communication arts category.

Early life

Rahman was born 2 January 1946 in Calcutta to Mohammed Fazlur Rahman, a lawyer, and Lutfunessa Begum. For his secondary education, he attended Nawabpur Government High School and then Dhaka Government College. For his higher education, he attended the

University of Dhaka The University of Dhaka (also known as Dhaka University, or DU) is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is the oldest university in Bangladesh. The university opened its doors to students on July 1st 1921. Currently i ...

and earned his master's degree in statistics in 1967. While a student, he became a Marxist and was a student leader in East Pakistan Student Union. Later, he was secretly a member of

Communist Party of Bangladesh The Communist Party of Bangladesh ( bn, বাংলাদেশের কমিউনিস্ট পার্টি) is a Marxism-Leninism, Marxist–Leninist communist party in Bangladesh. History After the Partition of India, partitioni ...

while it was still outlawed.

Career

Rahman entered journalism in 1970 when he became the editor of ''Ekota'', a socialist weekly. For five years during the 1970s, he also published the Bangladesh edition of the journal ''

World Marxist Review ''Problems of Peace and Socialism'' (September 1958–June 1990, Russian: ''Проблемы мира и социализма)'', also commonly known as ''World Marxist Review'' (WMR), the name of its English-language edition, was a monthly theore ...

''. He left that position after 21 years and after the fall of the East Bloc. After he left ''Ekota'', he worked as a journalist for '' Ajker Kagoj'', which was Bangladesh's first modern newspaper. In February 1992, he partnered with others to found '' Bhorer Kagoj'', which he edited for the next six years. After

Saber Hossain Chowdhury Saber Hossain Chowdhury (born 10 September 1961) is a politician from Bangladesh and the incumbent member of Parliament in Bangladesh from the Dhaka-9 constituency. He was the president of Inter-Parliamentary Union from 2014 to 2017. He is the f ...

joined the cabinet of the Awami League government, Rahman felt pressured to shape the newspaper's stance in accordance with the ruling party and this led to his resignation. In 1998, he founded ''Prothom Alo'', a daily newspaper. On 12 February 2013, Rahman was wounded from broken glass while in his car when Jamaat-Shibir workers were rioting and vandalising cars. He was elected president of the

Newspaper Owners' Association of Bangladesh Newspaper Owners' Association of Bangladesh (NOAB) () is an industry trade association of newspaper owners in Bangladesh. The former President of Newspaper Owners' Association of Bangladesh is AK Azad, publisher of the daily New Age and chairman ...

in June 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rahman, Matiur Living people 1946 births People from Kolkata Bangladeshi journalists Bangladeshi newspaper editors Ramon Magsaysay Award winners Journalists from West Bengal