This year Rising Stars turns 20! What appeared in the form of a broadsheet in 1991 has now taken the form of a weekly supplement. The Rising Stars is the oldest supplement of The Daily Star and started out with the aim to provide the youth of the country a platform to express their thoughts and views. Over the years as the format changed into an eight page all-colour tabloid, Rising Stars has evolved into a supplement that deals with a varied and wide range of topics, from movies to politics, from music to teen issues.

The Rising Stars initially began as a supplement for kids, with its Kid Stars section giving ample encouragement to creative young children. As time went by Rising Stars took on more and more teenaged writers and its current reader demographic has a solid base among the 13-18 age group. The writers working for Rising Stars are all within the 16-20-years-old range. On the occasion of its 20th anniversary I would like to reiterate that the Rising Stars is a teen supplement, it is for the youth and its writers are writing with those readers in mind. It is unfortunate to say that Rising Stars suffers an identity crisis. There are those who still think Rising Stars caters primarily to children, which it still does to an extent through the occasional Kid Stars column. However, the magazine has changed into a teenager's magazine.

Keeping that in mind, as you turn the pages, this transition from a children's magazine to a teenager's magazine becomes more evident and we hope that Rising Stars regains its proper identity and continues to be associated with the progressive youth of today.

Raffat Binte Rashid
Photo: Zahedul I Khan

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