-The Hindu Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India, argues that the media has a very important role to play in helping the country make the transition from an old feudal society to a modern industrial one quickly, and without much pain. The Role the Media should be playing in India by Justice Markandey Katju, (former Judge, Supreme Court of India), Chairman, Press Council of India To understand the role which...

The word ‘hunger’ does not appear in the 12th Plan Approach Paper even once, whereas according to the latest Global Hunger Index Report, India continues to be in the category of those nations where hunger is ‘alarming’. What is worse, India is one of the three countries where the hunger index between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries...

To understand the role which the media should be playing in India we have to first understand the historical context. India is presently passing through a transitional period in its history: a transition from a feudal agricultural society to a modern industrial society. This is a very painful and agonising period. The old feudal society is being uprooted and torn apart; but the new, modern, industrial society has not yet been...

The truth about the Indian media’s increasing reliance on revenues from news that has been paid for, has long been shrouded in half-truths, corporate denials and misleading information in carefully sifted reports sent out by regulatory bodies. While the national media, flush with high TRP ratings and advertising revenues, is patting itself on its self-righteous back for relentless coverage of the public protests against corruption in high places, it is...

Our country is poised at a dangerous place right now for many reasons. There are all kinds of battles for supremacy. There are real resistances, there are theatrical and false resistances, revolutions from the top, revolutions from the bottom. And sometimes all of this is interpreted by an increasingly hysterical media which doesn't allow space for reflection, for thought, that will only bombard, control the public imagination.   At times like this,...