Bangladesh’s Supreme Court yesterday banned the use of the national anthem as a ringtone for mobile telephones or for any other commercial purpose.
“The national anthem can’t be used as a business tool,” the Supreme Court said, upholding a 2010 high court ruling.
The national anthem, Amar Shonar Bangla or My Golden Bengal, is based on the first 10 lines of a 1905 song written by Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The song was adopted as the anthem in 1972.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice S K Sinha passed the order after dismissing two separate appeals filed by mobile operators Banglalink and Grameenphone.
