High-profile politicians came while others sent flowers to congratulate the Nhan Dan (People) newspaper’s 60th anniversary in Hanoi on March 10, showing their devotion to the Party’s mouthpiece.

Nguyen Phu Trong, Party General Secretary and National Assembly Chairman, and his predecessors in the Party, Do Muoi and Nong Duc Manh, sent baskets of flowers to the celebration.

The event was attended by State President Nguyen Minh Triet and Truong Tan Sang, Politburo member and permanent member of the Party Central Committee Secretariat, and many other senior Party and State officials.

Lao Deputy Minister of Information and Culture Bosengkham Vongdala came and presented the newspaper with the Issara Order, First Class, a highest distinction by the Lao State, for its excellent contribution to the special Vietnam-Laos relationship.

Truong Tan Sang urged the Nhan Dan newspaper to take the lead in disseminating Party guidelines and State policy, especially the 11th Party Congress Resolution, among Party members and people from all walks of life.

He called for more investigative reports, analyses and inclusive commentaries on major political and economic events, to meet social demand.

“The newspaper should publish more and more articles of high combat spirit, sharpness and conviction on the struggle against false allegations by hostile forces and political opportunists,” emphasised the senior Party official.

The fight against bureaucracy, corruption and waste, and other social evils was another major topic that Sang asked the Party mouthpiece to focus on.

State President Nguyen Minh Triet pinned a Ho Chi Minh Order to the newspaper’s traditional flag, making it the second of its kind to the newspaper, along with other awards over the past six decades. Other honours included the Golden Star Order, Labour Hero title and Hero of People’s Armed Forces title.

The Nhan Dan newspaper was founded at the second Party Congress in Kim Binh, Chiem Hoa district, in the northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang, to replace the Su That (Truth) newspaper. Its first issue was published on March 11, 1951.

It had received special care from Vietnam’s first President Ho Chi Minh, who wrote 1,205 articles for the newspaper in 23 pen-names for 18 years from the first issue./.