SRINAGAR, NOVEMBER 20, 2015 – Describing free and independent media as an essential pillar of a vibrant democracy, Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Friday urged the Fourth Estate to play a proactive role in helping the state tide over the challenge posed by negative perception about J&K, which impedes its huge potential in tourism sector.
The Chief Minister said this in an informal conversation with country’s top names in media which had converged on the summer capital as part of Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), a think-tank of news and entertainment media, for the Board of Directors (BoDs) meeting here.
During the interaction, he also spoke at length on several issues including dialogue with Pakistan, cross-LoC trade & travel, intolerance, alliance with BJP, NITI Ayog, tourism and development.
President IBF & CEO, Star India, Uday Shankar, Vice President IBF, Puneet Goenka, Vice President IBF & Chairman India TV, Rajat Sharma, Vice President IBF & Director Bangla Entertainment Pvt Limited, N. P. Singh, Treasurer IBF & GM South Asia, Discovery Networks, Rahul Johri, Director Eenadu, I. Venkat, Group CEO, Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd, Sudhanshu Vats, MD, South Asia Turner International, Siddharth Jain, Chairman TV Today Group, Arun Purie, MD, UTV Entertainment Television Ltd., Siddharth Roy Kapoor and Member Finance, Doordarshan Rajeev Singh were present on the occasion.
During his interaction, the Chief Minister said the foremost challenge on the internal front was to bring the three regions of the state together. “My alliance with the BJP demonstrates my resolve to gel the three regions of the state following the fractured verdict in 2014 elections,” he said, while noting with concern the inability of the successive government in the past to connect the regions.
The Chief Minister also had a word of caution over the threat posed by certain fringe groups to the country’s rich diversity and multiculturalism. “The agenda of development cannot take a back seat to the politics of hate propagated by a fringe minority which relishes media attention. We need to shrink their space by simply ignoring them,” he said.
|