Munir Chowdhury and the Bengali Typewriter 'Munir Optima'.

This is a "Du Taaka" (Two Rupees) Postage Stamp of A. N. M. Munir Chowdhury. Published by Bangladesh Govt.

Munir Chowdhury developed a keyboard layout for Standardization of Bengali Typewriters. After the Indipendence of Bangladesh a typewriting company E. Romington marketted a series of Bengali Typewriters according to the keyboard layout of Munir Chowdhury. They named it 'MUIR OPIMA TYPEWRITERS' this is the most commonly used typewriter in Bangladesh before the P.C came out. Now it's only seen in the Courts of Bangladesh.

Munier Chowdhury actively participated in the Language Movement of 1952, and was imprisoned by the Pakistan government. He wrote his famous symbolic drama, Kabar (The Grave) during his imprisonment. He also fought against any type of cultural repression during the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1967, he protested against the Pakistan government's directive to ban Tagore songs on Radio and Television. In the late 1960s there was a movement in Pakistan to replace the Bengali language alphabet with the Roman alphabet. As a linguist and writer, Munier Chowdhury protested this move to undermine the native language of East Pakistan. He actively participated in the non-cooperation movement during the early part of 1971 and renounced his award Sitara-e-Imtiaz (awarded by Pakistan Govt in 1966). [2]

Before the Indipendence of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) many freedom activist and many intellectual people along with Munir Chowdhury was kidnapped by Pakistan Army and they were never found.

The ATN Bangla channel belongs to Munir's son.