I am 26. And I have been reading, watching and understading my country to a great deal from the media here. Since mid-1980s, Indian media has come a long way. Good old print media had thrived well in the past and they still enjoy support and dedicated readership. Worth mentioning amongst these are The Hindu, Indian Express, Times of India and the Hindustan Times. Apart from these National Dailies, regional news papers in various languages have also played crucial roles and they still are the favourites among the non-English speaking masses here. Some of them worth mentioning are Ananda Bazaar (Bengali), Daily Thanthi (Tamil) and Lok Satta (Marathi).
With the emergence of television in mid 1980s, Doordarshan, state owned television took the first step. News telecasts every made every 3-4 hours during the day. The Indian public slowly moved their Entertainment centered interests to Current Affairs and Knowledge based interests. This lead the way to some of the news papers venturing into small 1-2 hr TV segments and ofcourse, there were new players too. One major mention is New Delhi Television (currently known as NDTV) and its founder and director Prannoy Roy. NDTV ventured into commentaries and live telecast on General Elections in the country and its famous weekly 'The world this week' is well known to many here. Today, NDTV is a full fledged news channel, not one but 3 - NDTV 24x7, NDTV India(Hindi) and NDTV Profit (Finance). And these channels are doing very well with their coverage of the happening in every nook and corner of the land. Along with NDTV have risen various other news/current affairs channels as well. In 2 decades, the media of this country seems so much transformed and mature.
Today, a small ad in NDTV, motivating people to rise, open up and speak the truth and stand against injustice so that its never repeated, so that its not ignored and it never goes unpunished is very inspiring. Media of this country are rising to occasions, Tehelka for instance went ahead with closed spy cams to take footage of the rich and the powerful involved in crime and illegal deals sending shiver down the spine of the country. Journalist like Burkha Dutt and Anita Pratap rising the bar by going all after the reality. These are the icons of today's India, these are trend setters of the modern India. BE BOLD, SEEK THE TRUTH they say. And its time the people rise to protect an heritage and culture which is getting lost amongst enimity, hatred, crime and money.
It is our responsibility to establish a taboo free society for the future generations. The Indian media is doing its job, Are we?
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