Nagpur: Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Sports and Youth Affairs Anurag Singh Thakur while speaking on interference of foreign media in India said that some foreign forces are not able to digest India’s growing steps and progress. “No foreign media is above the courts of India. Interference in the functioning of constitutional institutions will not be tolerated”, he warned.
“Foreign media will not decide the India’s direction. Indian media should not give any foreign media a chance to set the narrative of our country,” he added. He slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for insulting ‘Swatantryaveer’ Savarkar and said that Pt Jawaharlal Nehru also had once apologised to get released from jail.
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11 April 2025
“Indian media should break western hegemony over information flow. This needs to be broken. India cannot become ‘Vishwa Guru’ until we take information flow in own hands,” said Anurag Thakur. He was speaking at the Lokmat National Media Conclave on the topic ‘Is Indian Media Completely Polarised?’.
The conclave was organised to mark the birth centenary of Jawaharlal Darda (Babuji), freedom fighter and Founder Editor of Lokmat Media Group, and also the Golden Jubilee of Lokmat’s Nagpur edition, at Hotel Centre Point in Nagpur on Sunday. Sudhir Mungantiwar, Forest Minister of Maharashtra; Ashok Jain, Director Operations of Lokmat Media Group; Dr Vijay Darda, Chairman of editorial board of Lokmat Media Group and former MP; shared the dais.
Thakur listed several achievements of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and said that some foreign powers were unable to digest India’s stupendous growth and hence a section of foreign media was pursuing ‘agenda’ to defame India. “But, no foreign media is above the Indian courts, and interference in the functioning of Constitutional institutions will not be tolerated,” Thakur said.
Mungantiwar said, “India is a tolerant country. It cannot be polarised under any conditions. Hence, our media also cannot be polarised.” Smita Prakash also said that Indian media was not polarised. “Till 1980s, you had only one TV channel run by Government. It telecast Government news only. All the newspapers were socialist. Today, there is a lot of variety and media organisations with different ideologies are competing with each other. Indians should be thankful for this choice,” she added.
Vijay Darda said that the electronic media was in the dock especially due to allegations regarding biased political coverage. “Every media house has its own viewpoint. But, there is difference between this and bias. Mostly media houses are fair but a few are creating bad name for media industry,” hesaid.
Rahul Pande, State Information Commissioner (Nagpur & Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar); Navika Kumar, Group Editor of Times Network; Vikas Bhadauria, Editor (National Affairs) of ABP; Amish Devgan, Managing Editor of News18 India (Hindi); Smita Prakash, Editor (News) of ANI; Aaku Srivastava, Executive Editor of Punjab Kesari and Navodaya Times; Ashish Jadhao, Editor of Lokmat Digital News; Sarita Kaushik, Deputy Executive Editor of ABP Majha;Ashutosh Patil,Editorof News18 Lokmat; S N Vinod, senior journalist; Vijay Baviskar, Group Editor of Lokmat Media; Pradip KumarMaitra, Associate Editor of Hindustan Times; and Sanjay Sharma, Associate Editor of Lokmat Samachar (New Delhi), were the panellists.
