LET us be perfectly clear on tills point. After the restoration of democracy in 1991, our free and vibrant media has been Bangladesh's greatest achievement since independence. /Ind, equally important, the vibrancy and vitality of the media has been crucial to our development and advancement.

Thus, we must acknowledge that when it comes to freedom of the press we have seen better days than the current times. The media has known freer times and we await and demand such freedom again. It is no exaggeration to say that if the press is not free, then the nation cannot prosper. The current chill that has descended on the media must end soon.

We are looking forward to elections, and once the elections have been held, we expect and insist that there will be no deviation from the free media that a democratic polity requires to sustain itself.

Indeed, even before the elections, we would like to see emergency provisions against the media lifted. We understand that these are extraordinary times and that extraordinary times call for some adjustment on the part of the media. We accepted it for a while. But this must now end for the sake of good election and genuine democracy.

No one can deny that the media has been extremely responsible so far. The media has exercised admirable selfdiscipline and restraint, and remains willing to be patient in the hopes of a trouble-free election.

However, in the run up to the election there is a crucial role for the media to play, and it is important that the chilling effect of remote control must end. Things have improved over the past several months, but there is a long way to go, especially for the electronic media.

We would like to see the media bloom in full freedom again and feel that the media's track record shows that this would be squarely in the national interest. A free media is the principal supporting institution that permits government to function smoothly. It is a free media that will make democracy run smoothly when it is restored, and in the run up to elections, die freer the media is permitted to be, the smoother the elections are likely to be.