It's become a tradition on the BBC News website that at the end of each year we look back at some of the faces that have been in the news, and in choosing a face for each month of the year we try to reflect a range of the different kinds of subjects that have been covered. We generally produce a list of women and a list of men, and since we regard it as part of our job to make the list interesting and engaging, we try to include some choices which are not obvious or predictable.

This, after all, is not a definitive list of the most important or influential people. It's not based on people's achievements, their popularity or their contribution to society. And it's not a celebration of either gender's role in humanity - it's just a selection of some of the faces from the headlines from the past year.

No one was more surprised than us, then, to see the phrase "pandagate" trending on Twitter on Wednesday, or the coverage in several newspapers on Thursday.

The inclusion on the list of Tian Tian, one of the pandas who arrived with such fanfare at Edinburgh Zoo, led some people to claim that we were not recognising the accomplishments of women. Tian Tian, being female, had been included in our list of women. However, as we pointed out yesterday, she was not the first non-human to be included on these lists - last year there was Peppa Pig who had got mixed up in a political wrangle. The year before there was Benson, a poisoned prize carp. Peppa was on the women's list, and Benson on the men's, though of course like Tian Tian they are not technically men or women.

One thing is at least clearer today. If Tian Tian hadn't justified her place on the list of newsmakers based on her arrival in Edinburgh, she would have done after this.

Giles Wilson is features editor of the BBC News website.

Next week the BBC Asian Network (AN) will dedicate a week's programming to mark the 40th anniversary of Bangladesh's independence.

On Monday 12 December, the AN team will leave for Bangladesh for two special outside broadcasts from Dhaka. The team will also join various programmes across the BBC to report on the celebrations of a landmark occasion in the history of this young republic.

As an editor on this project, it's been a challenge to oversee the resources spent on sending the team to Dhaka. I was convinced that we needed as many BBC stakeholders on board as possible.

It took a few email exchanges with the BBC London's Managing Editor David Robey and a subsequent meeting with a couple of his colleagues to get the most listened-to BBC local radio station to join our editorial plan. I hoped it would be hard for David and his team to ignore the opportunity to tap into what could be a sizeable audience in the Tower Hamlets area of east London.

It's worth mentioning that while British Bangladeshis constitute less than 1% of the UK population, their impact on the population at large has been profound. According to one statistic, this ethnic group - half a million British Bangladeshis - is responsible for 70-80% of the UK's 12,000 so-called Indian curry houses. And its influence on the wider British population hasn't been confined to our palates.

You only have to trawl through your wardrobe and it may spring a few surprises; I should know! Only the other day I bought some designer baby clothes as a gift for a friend in Bangladesh only to be told that they were "made in Bangladesh". That's how prevalent goods made in Bangladesh have become on our High Streets.

With this episode fresh in my mind, I was optimistic of a positive reaction from Stephen Mawhinney, BBC Radio 5 live's Head of News. And positive he was. Soon I heard from the station's breakfast show editor Scott Solder and the Up All Night team, both of whom were keen to use the services of my team.

I'm excited that my small initiative has fostered an editorial partnership with 5 live. The phrase "value for money" may be a cliche to some, but our approach has allowed me to be a part of some big editorial initiatives with next to no costs. Clever collaborations - within and outside the BBC - are the way forward in these straitened times.

The plan is for Gagan Grewal, one of our flagship presenters, to join 5 live Breakfast and BBC London's breakfast programmes live from Dhaka. On the day of the celebrations (16 December), Gagan will also join the Asian Network's breakfast show briefly before co-hosting part of our mid-morning programme presented by Sonia Deol.

Our pan-BBC partnerships don't end there. Our news team has commissioned a series of special reports from Bangladesh to be played every day during the week. Topics include a the growing phenomenon of reverse migration and how impoverished Bangladeshi children are being trained to survive the fury of floods and cyclones with Olympics money. The story on reverse migration will first be aired on The One Show on 13 December.

We kickstart our Bangladesh at 40 week with a specially commissioned documentary presented by former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq, who is herself of Bangladeshi origin.

In true multimedia spirit, we aim to make most of the reports available on video across various BBC platforms. They include the Asian Network's website, BBC News Online, the video-on-demand site, South Asia online and the 2012 site among others.

We end our coverage with two outside broadcasts from Dhaka on 18 December. One promises to be groundbreaking as it will be the first time the Asian Network has simulcast any of its shows with a commercial radio partner. I originally mooted the idea of a simulcast with Betar Bangla, a relatively new Bengali community radio station in east London, with some long-term gains for both partners in mind.

Nearly half of the 3.5 million British Asians live in London. But as a digital station, the Asian Network has no analogue presence in the capital, an impediment to the aim of growing our reach across the capital.

Partnering with Betar Bangla will allow a big audience group in London to hear our output on an accessible platform - otherwise known as medium wave. In return, Betar Bangla will see a significant improvement in their output as we're committed to providing regular training to their presenters, helping them to become a more truly professional radio station.

Rifat Jawaid is editor of South Asian language programmes at the BBC Asian Network

The issues involved in British membership of the European Union represent a faultline that runs not just through UK politics but through British society. It is a topic that frequently enrages viewers, listeners and readers like few others.

You only have to look at the poll in today's Times, suggesting widespread support for the Prime Minister's action at last week's summit, to see the depth and power of Euro-scepticism across the country. Like any highly controversial subject, it is always challenging for an impartial news organisation to report without inflaming strong views on either side of the debate.

Trust must be at the heart of the BBC's relationship with its audiences and that is why we listen carefully to the range of feedback audiences give us. We've had some criticism of our coverage over the weekend claiming it was too "pro-European". I've watched, heard and read a great deal of what we did and without any sense of complacency, I think we reported events fairly and accurately and tried hard to capture a very wide range of views about last week's summit.

It is not our job to hail any summit on any subject as a "triumph" or a "disaster". Our role is simply to report and analyse events and their fall-out.

Nobody disputes that there was a big row in Brussels last week or that the Prime Minister's approach left him standing alone among European leaders - but there is considerable disagreement about whether or not that is a good thing and what it might mean politically and economically. Our job is to explain what happened and interrogate the different perspectives taken on Mr Cameron's stance so that our audiences can judge for themselves.

So on Friday and over the weekend we attempted to discover just what it was that the Prime Minister had vetoed, which safeguards he was seeking for the City of London, and what had changed for the UK and for Europe. We questioned a wide range of politicians and we picked up the unease among Liberal Democrats, which burst into the open with Nick Clegg's appearance on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday.

We've backed this up with analysis of the political and economic implications by our most trusted and respected editors: Nick Robinson, Gavin Hewitt, Robert Peston, Stephanie Flanders and a host of other correspondents.

Almost inevitably, this process leads to politicians having to field some uncomfortable questions from BBC interviewers. We don't do that because we have some hidden agenda but because the public expects us as an independent and impartial broadcaster to hold governments and opposition parties to account.

Over the weekend news programmes have featured in-depth interviews with George Osborne and William Hague for the Conservatives, Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats, a range of Euro-sceptic voices and some highly critical Labour politicians. All have different views, all have been allowed to express them - and rightly so.

It is the nature of contentious subjects - Europe, climate change, the Middle East - that they polarise opinion. Among those who feel strongly about them, BBC News is often accused of "taking sides". We must always be open to criticism of course - we don't get everything right. But criticism, however ferocious, should never deter us from focussing on the basics: telling the story accurately and fairly, testing it against a wide range of opinions and challenging all those opinions with rigour.

It's not an approach that makes us popular with everyone of course, but it may explain why audiences have remained so loyal to BBC News output over many decades.

Helen Boaden is the BBC Director of News