This meeting was the first time that both SM Ali, the paper's first editor and myself its executive editor had ever set our eyes on him. I remember the meeting, during which he hardly spoke, very distinctly. He said he was there primarily to hear what others had to say and that he was still to make up his mind, which he would do only after learning more about the planned paper and after meeting its editor and others.

By the time the meeting ended a complete transformation had taken place in Azim Bhai's attitude towards our project and he decided to become a part of the paper's investors. The magical change came about, as he later told us all, by meeting S.M. Ali. He said that he had never met a journalist by whom he was as impressed as he was by our founding editor. He said that if Mr. Ali would be the editor then he would unhesitantly invest in the paper.

That was how a very unlikely entry of Azimur Rahman in the world of the media took place. In our first formal board meeting he was elected as the chair of Mediaworld, a position he was repeatedly re-elected to until his untimely death.

Discovery of Ali Bhai's cancer and his succumbing to it within 19 months of the paper's founding created a severe crisis in the leadership during which Azim Bhai performed roles far beyond the call of a Board's chair. Becoming S.M. Ali's successor without much of his talent and experience was a challenge that I would not have been able to rise up to without the support, encouragement, and commitment of Azim Bhai.

The most important part he played at this crucial time of transition was to encourage me to play the role that so untimely fell on my unprepared shoulders. He stood by me and made up with his support what I so obviously lacked in confidence and skill. While he was most helpful to me, he was also extremely conscious of separation of the institution of the editor and that of the Board. Thus he laid down the most significant practice in this newspaper of a clear separation of the role of the board of directors and that of the management of the newspaper, and the totally independent role of its editor.

The present success of The Daily Star, however modest, is due as much to its editorial independence as it to its modern and scientific management under the guidance of an enlightened, idealistic, patriotic board of directors with unquestioned integrity and honesty. Azimur Rahman can be termed to have been the most ideal representative of this board. Simple, honest, idealistic, determined, and committed, he drove us all to strive for higher values and put ethics at the heart of our journalism.

Any successful institution needs many founders. The people who come together at the beginning make a crucial difference as to the future of the organisation that they set up. We at The Daily Star were immensely lucky to have had such a group to give us to a solid start. It was indeed most fortunate for this paper, its management, its employees and especially for this writer that a person of Azimur Rahman's intellectual makeup became the founding chairperson of Mediaworld, the owning company of The Daily Star.

He was a superb institution builder. Never putting his own person or views before anybody else's and being always open to suggestions, criticisms, and to alternative view points, he was the perfect chairman of the founding Board of a budding new newspaper with its multifaceted challenges. The pressures were many, so were the views as to how to handle them. Azim Bhai, as he was lovingly called by all of us, managed this stream of divergences extremely well and was always able to bring a consensus out of the chaos of opinions, and give the management the most clear and unambiguous direction to move forward.

Always having calm and unperturbed veneer (in the later years he confided that he was not always as calm as he looked) he was always the person on top of the challenges. What was the most significant development for the Star was that the reluctant media investor had, over time, become passionately involved with it. With the passage of time, and as he became more and more exposed to the difficulties of managing and leading a newspaper, especially one that is uncompromisingly non-partisan and ferociously independent, Azim Bhai became more and more attached to the work in the Star. For Board meetings he was almost always the first one to arrive and of course the last one to go. He would prepare meticulously for every one of them and regularly talk to the company secretary and me about decisions taken.

As a man who did not know much about newspapers and who never imagined himself to be involved with one, his fundamental awareness of the need for a free and independent newspaper was remarkable. He seemed to have instinctively felt that Bangladesh needed a paper like The Daily Star and that he was determined to do his utmost in building it. Once in it he gave it his best. With everything he got he protected the paper's independent editorial policy and prevented all sorts of influences from affecting it.

The Daily Star would not have been what it is today without the guiding and loving leadership of its founding chair. May God grant him Eternal Peace.

Mahfuz Anam is Editor and Publisher of The Daily Star.