By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: Prominent journalists from India including N Ram, MJ Akbar and Satish Jacob and Pakistan, including Najam Sethi, will attend an international conference to be organised by the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism (MCJ) at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) on the theme ‘Muslims, Democracy and the Media: Challenges and Prospects’.
It will be held on March 17 and 18 at MANUU campus at Hyderabad.
The broad themes and sub-themes of the conference are: 1. Minorities, Muslims and the Media: (i) Minorities and the Media; (ii) Muslims, Ethnic Media and the Problems of Marketing and Advertising; (iii) Muslims and Popular Cinema; (iv) Muslims and Popular Television; (v) Muslims and the Urdu TV Channels: Adequacies and Inadequacies; (vi) Challenges for Ethnic/Regional Media; (vii) Muslims and the lack of Corporatization of Ethnic Media; (viii) Urdu Media and Secularism & (ix) Muslims and International Media 2. Politics in Media and Media in Politics: (i) Muslims, Communalism and Indian Media; (ii) Muslims, Urdu Media and Muslim Politics & (iii) Muslims, Secular Democracy and the Media.
The conference will be attended by many eminent personalities from media and academicians from India and abroad.
N Ram, eminent journalist, M J Akbar, eminent journalist, Najam Sethi, eminent journalist, (Pakistan), Imtiaz Alam (Pakistan), Mehmal Sarfaraz (Pakistan), Arif Nizami, (Editor, Pakistan Today), Syed Atique Hussain Naqvi, (Group Editor, TRENDS, UAE), Zafar Agha, senior journalist (New Delhi), Saeed Naqvi, senior journalist (New Delhi), Satish Jacob, senior journalist (New Delhi), Shahid Siddiqui, senior journalist (New Delhi), Kamal Faruqui (former chairman, Delhi Waqf Board), Kamal Khan (Resident Editor, NDTV, Lucknow), Hisam Siddiqui, senior journalist (Lucknow), Hilal Ahmad (Associate Professor, CSDS, New Delhi), Anjum Rajab Ali (Film Writer, Mumbai), Seshadri Chari (Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha) and Professor Shafey Kidwai (HOD of Mass Communication, AMU, Aligarh) have given their consent to participate in the International Conference, MANUU officials said.
According to MANUU website the aim of the International conference is to gain an understanding of the ways in which the media plays a role in shaping perceptions, opinions and views on the Indian Muslim community and how they do so in response to particular events either at home or abroad.
The conference would provide an opportunity to opinion makers to exchange views on the status of the media, and the problems confronted by the Muslim community vis-a-vis the media. The conference will raise issues pertaining to representation, misrepresentation and under representation of the under-privileged and the marginalized, the increasing commercialization of the Indian media that is seeking to re-invent itself solely in terms of advertising revenue generation and eyeballs.