THERE was no edition of the newspaper on July 22, 1970 due to a protest against the levy of excise duty on newsprint. The following excerpt is from the previous day’s edition.
DACCA: There will be no newspapers in the country on July 22, when all newspapers and publications in the country stop publication for a day to protest against levy of excise duty on newsprint. A Press release issued by APNS today [July 20] said that this is being done as a token of protest against levy of excise duty on newsprint at the rate of Rs300 per ton in the Central Budget.
It would be recalled that the newspapers as well as consumers of newsprint have been protesting against the levy but so far the Government has given no indication that it would be ready to withdraw it. …
One of the alternatives open to the newspapers would be to cut down drastically the consumption of newsprint. If they are forced to do it, the result would be heavy curtailment of news coverage with its obvious consequences. … [Sheikh Aftab Ahmad, Acting President APNS] said in an election year … it would be most unfortunate that newspapers should find their ability to serve the public shrink to almost nothing.
Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2020
