Iconic business journalist and Editor of The Financial Express A.H.M. Moazzem Hossain is no more.
He breathed his last on Wednesday evening at Square Hospital in Dhaka. He was 73.
He was suffering from heart and lung complications.
He had been undergoing treatment at the Square Hospital for the last few weeks after being treated in Singapore.
Mr Hossain left behind his wife Chand Sultana, son Fahim Hossain, daughter Farhana Hossain and a host of relatives, friends and well-wishers to mourn his demise.
His first namaj-e-janaja will be held at 10:00am at Ramna Estate Complex, Boro Maghbazar and the second one at 12 noon at the National Press Club before being laid to rest at the Azimpur graveyard in Dhaka after Johr prayers on Thursday.
Mr Hossain launched the paper in 1993. He became publisher of The Financial Express on behalf of its owning company, International Publications Limited (IPL). He also took over as Managing Director of the IPL.
Mr Hossain, a graduate and post-graduate in Economics from Dhaka University, started his career in journalism in 1971 as a reporter with the erstwhile Pakistan Observer, which is the now-defunct Bangladesh Observer.
He later worked with The New Nation, United News of Bangladesh (UNB), The Dhaka Courier, The Daily Star and The Telegraph (now defunct).
After completing his post-graduation, Mr Hossain worked with Habib Bank Limited, Karachi, Pakistan as an officer in the Training and Research Department; and with the Ministry of Finance of the then government of Pakistan, Islamabad, as a research officer.
He was a member of the management board of the Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) from 1995 to 2001, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), the national news agency, from 1997 to 2000.
He was the founding President of the Economic Reporters Forum (ERF) launched in 1992.
Mr Hossain was a member of the Board of Directors of Janata Bank, a nationalised commercial bank, for two consecutive terms. He was also a director of Securities Trading Company Limited, a subsidiary company of the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB), and an independent director of Bay Leasing & Investment Ltd.
He was an independent director of Southeast Bank Limited.
Mr Hossain was a Fellow and, later on, a Senior Fellow of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
He received the ERF Life Term Achievement Award for excellence in Economic Journalism, the Distinguished Professional Award for Journalism by Mercantile Bank Limited and Nawab Bahadur Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury National Award for Journalism.
He attended a number of training courses on Development Journalism at home and abroad.
Mr Hossain was a Fellow of Asia Foundation for inter-country comparative reporting in Singapore.
He participated in the International Visitors Programme of the then United States Information Agency (USIA), for Economic Journalists and Writers (1987) and joined as a member of the Bangladesh Editors Team on a visit to the USA (2003).
He was a member of the multi-national Asian Development Bank (ADB) Press Study Team that visited Manila, the Philippines (1991) and participated in the European Community Visitors Programme as well as the international visitors’ programmes of the governments of the UK and France.
He covered the UN Trade Efficiency Conference in Ohio, USA in 1994.
His daughter Farhana Hossain is a practising ophthalmologist and son Fahim Hossain is an electrical and electronic engineer trained from RMIT in Melbourne, Australia.
In a condolence message, Finance Minister AMA Muhith expressed his deep shock at the death of Mr Hossain.
The Finance Minister said Moazzem Hossain was a bold voice in the realm of journalism.
He was always fearless about revealing the truth.
The void he left is irreparable, said the minister.
The minister prayed for salvation of the departed soul and expressed his sympathy for the bereaved family.