HAS INDIAN MEDIA LET DOWN THE NATION?

Bikash Choudhury

One top media mogul described his media outfit “as business of advertising”. This was a very audacious and matter of fact statement by the owner of a very prominent media brands for over 100 years in the practice of this Business. See, this is very much true for other media owners as well; however, they do not have courage of conviction to state the obvious. We all see this happening before our own eyes as we see in the day’s news paper the item of news like Rape, Murder, Accidents, All Kinds of Corrupt Practices and Terror Strikes hog the limelight in the front page and lucidly explained in the right hand side inner pages where it must be prominently visible to a naked eye. Same holds good for the now infamous electronic media whose purse strings are mainly driven by the TRP ratings that decides their level of advertising compensations for a 10 second spots; therefore, apart from news and views they show every thing else that our naked mind drools over without pretensions sex, sleaze, debonair award ceremony most of them purchased before over a five star launch or dinner depending upon their respective libido. They do cover some positive news in the fringe periphery very difficult to get noticed and too far from drawing the social attention or changing our injurious habits, spurious beliefs and toxic culture. The romance of journalism is long dead. Who will wake up our fourth estate now? GoI has started one progressive policy for “Monetizing Gold” that wish to transform unproductive yellow metals in the possessions of individuals into very productive assets for the Nation while individual earns a good income (2.75 % interest) on their exposure to the Sovereign Gold Bonds. However, the public response to this scheme is tepid; because, our social conditioning, popular habits and old culture of having the Yellow Metals at home is so powerful that all the benefits of additional income, safety and substantial return on investments has not been able to draw Indian people to subscribe to Indian Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme. Our Media play a very vital role for public education on such issue of National importance; however, neither our mainstream English Language media nor Vernacular media ever tried to highlight the importance of gold monetization scheme that would have gone a long way to finance our Infrastructure Sector (Rail, Road, Port & Airports) and Social Sectors (Education & Health) which requires a trillion dollars of investment to pull our country from historic disadvantages. India has approximately twenty thousand tonnes of yellow metal in the possession of individuals; at least, if we are able to monetize 50% of the stock then we can have World Class Roads, Bullet Trains, Airports at District Headquarters and we could pay decent salary to our primary teachers to attract talent while populating our rural health centers with qualified Medical practitioners to uplift our general health system just like in developed Nations. There is still time for Indian Media to consider this issue in depth and act with alacrity for the welfare of our billion plus people. Otherwise, Indian Media would let down this Nation.

(Authors Bio: Socio-Economic-Political Activist and Freelance Writer on socioeconomic & political issues and Art & Culture. Contact: streben.market@gmail.com)