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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 38, Dated 22 Sep 2012 |
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| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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PSYCHOLOGIES |
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‘Internet is still a scarce luxury in India’
WHO Delhi-based Anshul Tewari is a journalist and entrepreneur. A regular writer for the The Indian Express and The Wall Street Journal, he is the founder and editor-in-chief of Youth Ki Awaaz, an online news platform that combines journalism and technology.
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Anshul Tewari, 22, Media Entrepreneur
Photo: Arun Sehrawat |
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What was your intent behind Youth Ki Awaaz?
It is ironic that being the country with the largest youth population in the world, India lacks a channel for young people to voice themselves. The Right to Freedom of Expression remains only on paper. Youth Ki Awaaz (YKA) represents what the Indian youth thinks and disproves their apathy — a much-hyped stereotype. It provides them with a free, unbiased platform to talk about pertinent issues.
What does it take to be a media entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurship in India is either focussed on technology or towards services that have a low incubation period. Media not only has a very long period of incubation but is also a very risky space, as the audience and revenue growth is slow. Media entrepreneurship takes extra time, being over-passionate and very persistent.
Why choose an online portal to propagate news?
The Internet has a wider outreach than print and broadcast and is a two-way communication channel that is instant. It takes seconds for news to propagate via the Internet, after which the mainstream media picks it up. I understand that the Internet is still a scarce luxury in India. To overcome that, YKA is working on building tools for people with simple black-white mobile phones to voice their opinions. I have no plans to go the conventional way.
What were the challenges you faced?
One was to convince young people that writing for an ‘online only’ youth-based organisation will make a difference in the way people deal with issues. Since the platform was new and the blogging buzz had not picked up back in 2008, it was a challenge getting writers. In India, citizen journalism has explored participatory journalism, but collaborative journalism remains uncharted. To get people from very diverse backgrounds and different ideologies to work together on a single issue is hard.
Esha Vaish
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