Mon 09 September 2019:
Senior Journalist Ravish Kumar on Monday received the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay award, regarded as the Asian version of the Nobel Prize, in Manila, Philippines. Accepting the award, Ravish pointed out that the Indian media is in a state of “crisis” which is not accidental or random, but “systemic and structural”.
Born in Jitwarpur village in Bihar, Kumar joined New Delhi Television Network (NDTV) in 1996 and worked his way up from being a field reporter. After NDTV launched its 24-hour Hindi-language news channel – NDTV India – targeting the country’s 422 million native speakers of Hindi, he was given his own daily show “Prime Time.”
Talking about the hardship the journalists faced while reporting in Kashmir amid the clampdown after the abrogation of Article 370, Ravish said, “With the internet shut down in Kashmir, news channels abided by the government’s stand. Yet, we should also account for those who have dared to report from within that shutdown and face the wrath of the army of trolls. While journalism as an organization may have tinkered into non-existence, journalists continue to survive.”
Earlier, while giving hisacceptance speech on Friday, Ravish had said that the “soul of democracy is under relentless attack every day”. “We are living in testing times, as journalists and as common citizens. Our citizenship itself is on trial right now and make no mistake about it, we need to fight back,” Ravish had told the gathering.
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