Focus Bangla (formerly known as NE Bangla) is an Indian Bengali language 24x7 news channel launched in 2004 and owned by Rainbow Productions Ltd. Focus Bangla's impending launch would usher in an era of unprecedented and much-needed Bengali-language programming created and provided from Agartala (capital of Tripura State in Northeast India) and Kolkata (capital of West Bengal state).
The old logo during 2010
Focus Bangla is the Bengali language news channel of Focus News Network providing Bangla speakers unbiased and reliable news in real-time. Besides news from West Bengal, the channel offers national and international news and happenings, thus keeping the viewer informed in an increasingly connected world.
It raises issues related to the common man in West Bengal.[citation needed]
Its non-partisan news coverage has helped it carve a niche for itself. The channel has a wide range of programmes focused on major happenings of the day and analysis of major news events. In short, Focus Bangla reflects the kaleidoscope of Kolkata spanning across politics, arts, literature, cinema and culture.
Bengal is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predominantly covering present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Geographically, it consists of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest river delta in the world and a section of the Himalayas up to Nepal and Bhutan. Dense woodlands, including hilly rainforests, cover Bengal's northern and eastern areas, while an elevated forested plateau covers its central area; the highest point 3,636 metres (11,929 ft) is at Sandakphu. In the littoral southwest are the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest. The region has a monsoon climate, which the Bengali calendar divides into six seasons.
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India along the Bay of Bengal. With over 91 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous state and the thirteenth-largest state by area in India. Covering an area of 88,752 km2 (34,267 sq mi), it is also the eighth-most populous country subdivision of the world. Part of the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, it borders Bangladesh in the east, and Nepal and Bhutan in the north. It also borders the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam.
Kolkata is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, the city is approximately 80 km (50 mi) west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commercial, and financial hub of Eastern India and the main port of communication for North-East India. According to the 2011 Indian census, Kolkata is the seventh-most populous city in India, with a population of 45 lakh (4.5 million) residents within the city limits, and a population of over 1.41 crore (14.1 million) residents in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. It is the third-most populous metropolitan area in India. In 2021, the Kolkata metropolitan area crossed 1.5 crore (15 million) registered voters. The Port of Kolkata is India's oldest operating port and its sole major riverine port. Kolkata is regarded as the cultural capital of India. Kolkata is the second largest Bengali-speaking city after Dhaka. It has the highest number of nobel laureates among all cities in India.
Naxal is a 2015 Indian Bengali-language film directed by Debaditya Bandyopadhyay, starring Mithun Chakraborty and Dhritiman Chatterjee in pivotal roles.
The International Kolkata Book Fair is a winter fair in Kolkata. It is a unique book fair in the sense of not being a trade fair—the book fair is primarily for the general public rather than whole-sale distributors. It is the world's largest non-trade book fair, Asia's largest book fair and the most attended book fair. It is the world's third-largest annual conglomeration of books after the Frankfurt Book Fair and the London Book Fair. Many Kolkatans consider the book fair an inherent part of Kolkata, and instances of people visiting the fair every day during its duration are not uncommon. The fair offers a typical fairground experience with a book flavour—with picnickers, singer-songwriters, and candy floss vendors. With a total footfall of over 2 million people, it is world's largest book fair by attendance.
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time and dynastic patronization or non-patronization. Bengali has developed over the course of roughly 1,300 years. If the emergence of the Bengali literature supposes to date back to roughly 650 AD, the development of Bengali literature claims to have 1,600 years of old. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs in Old Bengali dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. The timeline of Bengali literature is divided into three periods: ancient (650-1200), medieval (1200-1800) and modern. Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres, including Hindu religious scriptures, Islamic epics, Vaishnava texts, translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit texts, and secular texts by Muslim poets. Novels were introduced in the mid-19th century. Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. Kazi Nazrul Islam, notable for his activism and anti-British literature, was described as the Rebel Poet and is now recognised as the National poet of Bangladesh.
ATN Bangla, 'ATN' being the acronym of the unused Asian Television Network, is a Bangladeshi Bengali-language satellite and cable television channel owned by Multimedia Production Company. It is based in the Kawran Bazar neighborhood of Dhaka. ATN Bangla is the first privately owned television channel and the first to broadcast on satellite in Bangladesh. The channel began broadcasting on 15 July 1997. ATN Bangla is broadcast in over 130 countries worldwide.
Tara Newz was an Indian Bengali-language satellite and cable 24-hour news and current affairs television channel owned by the Saradha Group, a chit fund company. It was launched on 21 February 2005, airing regional news coverages, after being split from Tara Bangla, which was launched on 28 April 2000. Tara Newz was targeted to Bengali-speaking audiences in both India and Bangladesh. It is broadcast from Tara's headquarters in Salt Lake, Kolkata. Due to financial reasons, the channel was shut down in 2013.
The culture of Bengal defines the cultural heritage of the Bengali people native to eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, mainly what is today Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura, where the Bengali language is the official and primary language. Bengal has a recorded history of 1,400 years. The Bengali people are its dominant ethnolinguistic group. The region has been a historical melting point, blending indigenous traditions with cosmopolitan influences from pan-Indian subcontinental empires. Bengal was considered to be the richest part of Islamic medieval India and during the era of the Bengal Sultanate it was described to be a major trading nation in the world, while during Mughal times, having triggered the proto-industrialization, its economy was worth 12% of global GDP. However, significant socio-economic inequalities existed during this period. As a part of the Bengal Presidency, it also hosted the region's most advanced political and cultural centers during British rule. Historically Feudalism has been widespread in the entire eastern Indian region. The feudal system flourished to a large extent under the British administration, which served as a means to exploit the Indian peasants by the British colonizers. This created a class of rich landlords in Bengal and a large population of poor peasants. It is noteworthy that a major portion of the Bengali intellectual community during the British era emerged from this wealthy class of landlords, as primarily they belonged to well educated families and got the economic opportunities to receive English education, often from abroad. The lower social classes remained in abject poverty and illiteracy. Thus, although the contribution of the Bengali intellectual community has been immense towards literature, science, politics and the Indian freedom movement, but still as it flourished under an exploitative imperial government, it mostly constituted of individuals belonging to the wealthy landlord families.
Transport between India and Bangladesh bears much historical and political significance for both countries, which possessed no ground transport links for 43 years, starting with the partition of Bengal and India in 1947. The Kolkata–Dhaka Bus (1999) and the Dhaka–Agartala Bus (2001) are the primary road links between the two countries; a direct Kolkata-Agartala running through Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh is being developed by both countries. The Maitri Express was launched to revive a railway link between Kolkata and Dhaka that had been shut for 43 years.
Zee Bangla is an Indian general entertainment pay television channel broadcasting in the Bengali language. It is owned by the Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It is the first Bengali-language satellite television channel in India, officially commencing broadcasts on 15 September 1999. The channel was first launched as Alpha Bangla which was later renamed to Zee Bangla on 28 March 2005. The channel launched its HD version on 20 November 2016.
Sangeet Bangla is a Free to Air Indian music television channel owned and managed by Media Worldwide Limited, based in Kolkata, India. The channel was the first venture of the Media Worldwide Network which now has three more music channels Music India, Sangeet Bhojpuri and Sangeet Marathi.
BBC Bangla is a Bengali language service of the BBC World Service.
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 of the 22 scheduled languages of India. With approximately 300 million native speakers and another 37 million as second language speakers, Bengali is the fifth most-spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world. Bengali is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language.
DD Bangla is an Indian Bengali-language free-to-air state-owned television channel owned by state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan Network. It was formerly known as DD-7 and DD National Kolkata. It broadcasts from Kolkata, Shantiniketan and Jalpaiguri. Launched on 9 August 1975, the network's programming consists of soap operas, infotainment series, news and current affairs, social programs and films in Bengali. It is available to 97.1% of the population of West Bengal on terrestrial television.
Tara Muzik was an Indian Bengali-language satellite and cable music-oriented television channel owned by the Saradha Group, a chit fund company. It was launched on 21 February 2005, as the first Bengali-language music-oriented channel in the world, after being split from Tara Bangla, which was launched on 28 April 2000. Tara Muzik was targeted to Bengali-speaking audiences in both India and Bangladesh. It is broadcast from Tara's headquarters in Salt Lake, Kolkata. Due to financial reasons, the channel was shut down on 12 May 2013.
Bengal is a region in South Asia, politically split between Bangladesh and India. Due to its long history and complicated political divisions, various names have been used to refer to the region and its subsections. The modern English name Bengal is a transliteration of the exonym Vaṅgāl in Hindi and other languages. The name is used by both Bangladesh and West Bengal in international contexts. In the Bengali language, the two Bengals each use a different term to refer to the nominally identified nation: Bānglā and Baṅga
The Bengali Language Movement is a campaign to preserve Bengali language and Bengalis culture and to oppose anti-Bengali sentiment in India. The movement was started in Manbhum in 1940, ahead of the Partition of India which allocated eastern Bengal to the new nation of Pakistan and led to the relocation of many Bengali communities. The Movement remains prominent in Assam, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.
TV9 Bangla is an Indian Bengali-language news channel based in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was launched on 14 January 2021.
Bangla Pokkho is a pro-Bangla advocacy organization that focuses on rights for Bengalis in the Indian Union, Bengali Nationalism and works against the Hindi cultural and linguistic perialism and nomination of Hindi speakers in West Bengal. It is organized along linguistic lines and aimed at protecting Bengali culture. It uses the Bengali slogan Joy Bangla.
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