Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said that Bangladesh’s development forged ahead despite the Covid pandemic that affected the global economy and created food shortage even in many developed countries. “We’ve been able to continue the development trend of Bangladesh despite facing the corona,” she told a function arranged to distribute the Swadhinata Purashkar-2022 (Independence Award-2022) at Shapla Hall of the Prime Minister’s Office. The prime minister said that the people now get to know even the small problems of the country because of the media freedom guaranteed by her government. “We know that massive food shortage has been seen in many developed countries as well,” she said, adding that many people throughout the world went below the poverty margin too. She said these problems faced by many countries went unreported, while in Bangladesh the media could write about it. The PM said there were only one television and one radio station in the country in the past before she opened the electronic media to the private sector. She said the people can now know about even small problems here due to information technology and a large number of television and radio stations. But many other countries are there who never publish such problems, she added. Hasina said Bangladesh has gained economic self-sufficiency. “Now we can implement our development projects with 90 per cent finance from our own resources,” she added. She said her Awami League government has been working to reach the benefits of independence to the doorstep of every house in the country. “We achieved Independence. Our goal is to reach its benefits to every house upholding this Independence. And we’ve been working with this goal,” she said.    Read: PM distributes Independence Award to 9 people, 2 organisations