Sanjida Afrin Sondha: Permissions to start online news portals in Bangladesh were controversial from the very beginning Many journalists and analysts claimed that the Ministry of Information provided these approvals based on political and financial recommendations. And because of that, there was anger among professional journalists for a long time._x000D_ _x000D_ There are 563 government-approved websites, including TV, magazines, and news portals, in Bangladesh. And the fact is that out of these, about 87 percent of the news portals were not professionally managed. It begins with the quality of the news to the condition of the website. Still, the Ministry of Information is regularly approving these substandard news portals. We believe in evidence, not just word of mouth. Therefore, the first two cases of the latest approval 9 online are not available as case studies._x000D_ _x000D_ The first online portal in this list is called ABC National News. Your head will take a turn when you see the identity of the online editorial team, which is run from Bheramara in Kushtia. They are one step, as there is an acting editor as well as an editor. On the plate, you will see the name of the editor. Md.Jahangir Rajib_x000D_ _x000D_ We wanted to know about Jahangir Rajib, and we went through his Facebook ID, and wrote there, that he is a digital creator. However, he did not mention anything anywhere about the association with the portal. However, we found some news about him, where he is claimed to be the publisher and editor of the portal._x000D_ _x000D_ He is also the General Secretary of the Bheramara Online Press Club and the Vice Chairman of an organization called Bangladesh Moafswal Journalist Society. Apart from this nothing of his journalism was found._x000D_ _x000D_ Now we want to have a look at the website. Only seven(7) categories of portals and almost all 7 categories are messy and the report is in an even more messy shape. But the actual fact is they have got approval from Information Minister Hasan Mahmud, Funny enough we got 23 news in 10 pages of the politics category about the information minister. On some pages, the information minister's news has been published twice. And zeal again, only 13 of the Prime Minister's news were published compared to the Information Minister. The most interesting was their Facebook page, where a person regularly posts pictures/videos of his personal travels and vlogs._x000D_ _x000D_ Now we will take a look at the second one on the list. This portal is published from Matijhil, Dhaka called NNN.media again there is a massive loop as the full form of this is Naziha News Network, Is anything familiar or a bit known here? Yes, sir now have a look at the Naziha group had a real alliance with Pk Haldar the money launder, let's go deep inside the story Naziha had a shell company called Le-Uk which was originally owned by PK Halder to make matters more complicated The MD of Naziha group was Mr zillur Rahman and he is the editor in chief of the portal._x000D_ _x000D_ The website of this company, which is more interested in money laundering, is in a really bad state. It seems like they bought domain hosting at a nominal price and have a website just because they need it. Where there is no proper category and no news. The same site also has content from other organizations of the Naziha Group. There is also doubt as to why this suspicious site is actually being used by the Naziha group._x000D_ _x000D_ One thing is clear from these two case studies, the Ministry of Information does not properly verify the approval. If it did, then the news portal of PK Halder's organization, the much-talked top money launderer, would not have been approved, nor would any portal have been allowed to carry the news of the Information Minister either. That means like other sectors in Bangladesh there's also some black sheep there running the roost._x000D_ _x000D_