Shomoyer Kotha which translates to "Talk of the Time", is a talk show on Bangladesh Television

Bangladesh Television

Bangladesh Television , also known by the acronym BTV, is the state-owned Television network in Bangladesh. It started broadcasting as Pakistan Television in what was then East Pakistan on 25 December 1964. It was renamed Bangladesh Television after the independence in 1971. Broadcasts in full...

, the state-owned television network in Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

. The programme is planned and hosted by Syed Munir Khasru, a faculty member of Institute of Business Administration

Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka

The Institute of Business Administration of the University of Dhaka - commonly known as IBA - is a government funded institution for business-education in the South Asian Country of Bangladesh. It was established in 1966 in collaboration with the Karachi IBA, the Ford Foundation, and Indiana...

, Dhaka University and is directed by Abdun Noor Tushar. The show debuted on June 22, 2007 with the airing of an interview of former US Ambassador to Bangladesh - Patricia Butenis. The very first program drew media attention when Butenis jokingly commented that Bangladeshis sometimes tend to be conspiratorial.

The show airs at 09:10 pm on Fridays; which may be considered the weekend prime time

Prime time

Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

 slot as Bangladesh observes weekend on Friday-Saturday. Although a new program, Shomoyer Kotha has received critical acclaims for its attractive and aesthetic set design, quality substance, creative format, and rich information content. Individual episodes of Shomoyer Kotha usually feature selected issues or events of national significance, e.g., Electoral and Political Reform, Anti-Corruption Drive, Price Hike of Essentials and so on. The program occasionally focuses on entertainment oriented topics like New Trends in Bengali Music, Cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 etc.

Shomoyer Kotha begins with some background information on the selected topic presented through a slide show which helps the audience to follow the discussion. At the end of the programme, the major inferences of the discussions are highlighted. The programme has so far interviewed Patricia Butenis, Anwar Chowdhury (British High Commissioner to Bangladesh), country heads of International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

 and Asian Development Bank

Asian Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia...

 and several other prominent personalities. The discussions in the program are in either English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 or Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

depending on the preference of the interviewee. The English discussions in the programme are supplemented with Bengali subtitles.