Chairman of Bharat Express News Network Upendra Rai
Indian Journalism Festival is being organized on 14, 15, and 16 April at Ravindra Natya Griha of Indore State Press Club. More than 100 senior journalists and editors of the country have reached Indore to participate in the festival focused on the subject of Media and Society: Breaking Faith.
When Upendrra Rai, Chairman of Bharat Express News Network, took the stage, he began his address by paying tribute to the prominent personalities in the programme before moving on with his remarks.
Upendrra Rai’s speech on journalism
भारतीय पत्रकारिता महोत्सव कार्यक्रम में भारत एक्सप्रेस के चेयरमैन उपेंद्र राय ने अमेरिका के पूर्व राष्ट्रपति थॉमस जेफ़र्सन का जिक्र किया…जिसमे थॉमस जेफ़र्सन ने कहा था कि ‘अगर सरकार नामक संस्था का गठन न हो यानी सरकार न हो, लेकिन प्रेस जिंदा रहे. तो ऐसा राष्ट्र मैं चाहूंगा. लेकिन… pic.twitter.com/C0S8C5cSgg
— Bharat Express (@BhaaratExpress) April 14, 2023
The chief of Bharat Express News Network, Upendrra Rai said, “I always attended Indian Journalism Festival without fail. While sharing his own experience with the delegates present at the event, he shared a life instance with the general secretary of BJP Kailash Vijayvargiya, and said he is like a brother, he further added that he learned journalism from Om Thanvi and although he had never worked for Jansatta, he had spent quality time with Prabhas Joshi.”
Many surveys have been conducted in the world on whether society has become better or worse than before and the results say that it has degraded a lot. The reality is quite the opposite, the world has become a thousand times better than before and continues to be so.
But there is a reason behind why those reports say that, and in the survey, it came out that the root cause of this perception of people is the media, the negative news that is telecasted by media. There is a reason behind every piece of news shown to the folks but the question is who decides what to show, what builds trust what breaks trust? Somehow it also starts with us.
Some prominent American personalities
He shared one of the famous quotes of the American founding father Thomas Jefferson “Newspaper without government over government without a newspaper,” it means I can live in a nation that doesn’t have any government but has the presence of the press, but I can’t wear that nation that doesn’t have the presence of the press.
Further, he elaborated on the concept of yellow journalism citing an example of the tension between Spain and America regarding Cuba. On the verge of the war, the American journalist William Randolph Hearst published the wrong news which ignited the war, he stated. This means the media is the reason behind people’s trust because by looking at it, we decide what we should do and what we should not do.
Upendra Rai’s intriguing story of Bengali Baba
He later on touched many aspects of journalism in which the story of Bengali Baba is very intriguing. He said – Those who have read a little bit of his story would know how he became famous, how the whole of India was at his feet. How is trust even created? It has a unique story, it is a story of once upon a time in the British era. Bengali Baba boarded the train and when the ticket checker asked him for the ticket, he said we are fakir people, we travel without tickets. The TC got Bengali Baba thrown off the train. When Bengali Baba got angry, he said let’s see how you can run the train without me. He had a stick in his hand, he chanted a mantra and kept the stick on the station. The engine of the train was on, all the parameters were correct, and the driver of the train tried hard, but the train didn’t move.
Senior journalist Upendrra Rai further said, “Slowly people got down from their bogies and gathered and there was a ruckus. Everyone started asking the ticket collector to apologize to Bengali Baba but he was not ready to do so. When the crowd gathered and he felt that it would start beating him, the poor man apologized after getting tired of defeat. Then Bengali Baba recited some mantras and the train started moving.
Senior journalist Upendra Rai while narrating the story said that “There was so much discussion about this miracle in the whole world that Bengali Baba became very famous, very powerful. In the last days of his life, Bengali Baba became friends with a journalist who asked him the real reason behind that incident. Baba revealed that all three were people bought by me – the driver, the ticket collector, and the station master. So behind the game of faith and disbelief, there is also a game of mathematics and communication.
