N. RAM, a former editor -in -chief, Hind, lectures a lecture in memory of MP Veerendry Kumar, former CEO Mathrubhumi, Kozhikode, Wednesday | Photo Credit: K Ragesh
And the Number of Factors Have Combined to Cast and Shadow Over India’s Democracy and Its Media Landscape, N. RAM, Former Editor-In, The Hindu, Said on Wednesday (May 28, 2025) and manipulation of state institutions, the Rise and Enormous Spread of the Social Media in Society, and the Weaponization of Hate Speech, Disinformation, Misinformation, and toxic propaganda both on social media and in the main media.
Mathrubhumi, who presented a lecture in memory of Veerendra Kumar, a former CEO, Mr. RAM stressed that the country faces an intensively dividing and polarizing municipal climate, organized hate campaigns and crimes and fascist violence focused on minorities and others. “India has witnessed and experienced some of it since the age of 90. The situation in 2014 became a qualitatively worse, when the regime was changed, which proved much more than a government change,” he said.
Modi-Trump: Shared authoritarianism
Mr. Ram, who developed a comparison between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, said that while both leaders may have a strikingly different background and styles, their administrations share authoritarian contempt for constitution and values, spirit and even a letter from these basic charters.
Mr. RAM, quoting scholar Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil, said the first Indian Indian dictatorship – an emergency emergency situation stored in June 1975 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi – was today a complex phenomenon that was now also parentheses. “This included, among other things,” dialectical relationship between populism and authoritarianism “.
It is this relationship that has been playing in the last decade, Mr. Ram said, ate into the vitality of Indian democracy. The BJP, supported by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its associated entities, embarked on a journey of incremental authoritarianism, softened, and whenever possible, subordinate constitutional and democratic institutions, and undermining India emphasized secular foundations, he added.
“Independent journalism still alive”
“The present is a period in which there is independent and fearless journalism in India bonuses, or seems to Mr. RAM.
When investigating, exploring and experimenting, journalists from the first position should not be satisfied with the fact that they publish the mass of material facts that they can discover through careful work, or that fall into their bikes with the strike of happiness. “Their real persecution is to invest these so far hidden or inaccessible facts with social, moral and often historical significance and weaving is in a cohesive and convincing story, so journalism significantly contributes to raising social awareness and costs the test of time.
In his book on newspapers, journalism and intelligence news at digital age, British journalist and educator George Brock identified four basic tasks as “an irredurable core… The basis on which journalism will be rebuilt in the 21st century” – verification, meaningful and exploring. “The only way to protect the freedom of the media is to exercise your right to freedom of expression and independence, to come what it can,” Mr. Ram said.
Also at the event was the first prize of the National Madeal Guide, introduced in memory of the late CEO Mathrubhumi Veerendry Kumar, handed over to the environmentalist environmentalist Panddurang Hege based in Karnataka Rajendra Singh.
Published – May 28, 2025 20:38
