No anthem for mobile ringtone

Bangladesh's high court on Thursday banned the use of the national anthem as ringtones for mobile phone ring tones or for any other commercial purpose.

'National anthem can't be used as a business tool,' the court said in its ruling, following a petition filed by a lawyer. The high court also fined the three top mobile phone operators 500,000 taka (S$9550) each for using national anthem for business purposes.

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 Asian to win the literature Nobel Prize. The song was adopted as the anthem in 1972.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the region, with 60 million mobile phone users now. There are six mobile phone operators, including five owned by foreign companies.