By Shaik Zakeer Hussain, TwoCircles.net,
Bengaluru: Amidst the clutter of agenda settings, communal meanderings, lies and deception, Vartha Bharathi, since its inception has been the voice of sanity, said all the dignitaries who attended the Readers’ convention and Release of 11th Annual Special Issue on the occasion of the Kannada daily’s eleven years of publication, held here in Town Hall yesterday.
Delivering the keynote address, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N.Ram said that, though he doesn’t understands Kannada, but he has received positive feedback about the newspaper from his good friend, writer U.R. Ananthamurthy and stressed the importance of people belonging to the minority community to be a part of the mainstream media. He said that Vartha Bharathi has set a good example of a newspaper managed by people belonging to the Muslim community to come into the mainstream.
Jnanpith Award winner and Padma Bhushan awardee, writer U.R. Ananthamurthy said that Vartha Bharathi is the only Kannada newspaper, which publishes “right news”. He lamented other newspapers and channels for promoting communalism and obscurantism. He said his comment that he wouldn’t want to live in a country, where the prime minister is the like of Narendra Modi was twisted by the news media to serve the purpose of some vested interests.
Vartha Bharathi was launched in 2003, by Mr. Abdussalam Puthige and is the only Muslim-run Kannada language daily newspaper. In 2009 it was awarded by Karnataka branch of Transparency International for its quality journalism.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Writer and thinker, Devanura Mahadeva, H.M. Afroz Assadi of Madhyama Communications Ltd, Syed Abdul Khader Bashu of Green Valley National School were some of the high ranking guests in attendance at the convention.
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