IBN Network Citizen Journalism – Honouring the fearless Spirits

‘We have done nothing in our lives!’ With so much opportunity at hand we are terribly wasted!’ This was the reaction that was evoked in my family while we were watching the ‘Citizen Journalist Awards’ organized by IBN Network on 23^rd October to recognize and encourage the Citizens who have contributed immensely to the society by dauntlessly reporting and evoking response from the concerned authorities. Democratization of news was started in grand way by Network 18 around 2006 and since then it has graduated into an effective tool for the common man to convey their views to the masses.

This event celebrating the unsubduable spirit of the citizen journalists was unfurled by singer Hariharan creating a great mood with his mellifluous voice. The hosts of the day were Rajdeep Sardesai, editor in chief, IBN Network, and Ashotosh, managing editor, IBN 7 who put forth questions about relevance of citizen journalism to the elite audience. Responding to the same, Nalini Singh, eminent journalist made a strong point when she said that once, the journalists used to be people connected to land, passionate to voice problems of their land, to bring a change. But today majority of journalists wish to become stars. They wish to see their names and faces flashing across the media which is not at all true journalism.

The event was presented by Idea Cellular Network and was rightly called a first of its kind, By the Citizens, Of the Citizens and For the Citizens. Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit, the chief guest of the occasion congratulated and conferred awards to 22 CJs in seven categories - Special CJ, CJ Fight Back, Save Your City, Green CJ, Be the Change, Best Videos and Best Images.

The Fight Back CJ Award went to the CJs who took initiative to fight back the system by questioning it. CJ Tulika Verma almost broke down when she started talking about her signature campaign to restart pediatric surgery ward of Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi which had been defunct for 2 years. Her son suffers from multiple congenital disorders which needed the assistance of pediatric surgeons.

The Save Your City Award was for the CJs who turn crusaders to save their city. CJ Vimla Devi who combated for community toilet facility in Kalyanpuri Area in New Delhi won this award. Vimla Devi who received the award from CM Sheila Dixit said that she had filed an RTI and put in a lot of efforts but all was in vain. She said that it was only when the story was reported through Network 18 that measures were being taken. Well in short she was saying that reporting in media lead to quick problem solving by the Government which is essentially because the government wants to save their face.

The Be the change award was for the CJs who lay the foundation for the change that they want to see in the world. Sameer Mehta’s free the left lane campaign in Hyderabad to prevent people from blocking the left lane and allow smooth flow of traffic won him this award

Green CJ Award was for CJs who took genuine efforts to nurture and save the environment. CJ Katie Bagli whose favourite rewinding spot was the 63 acre biodiversity park, Rani Bagh, in Mumbai fought her way through to save this park. Her efforts won her this award.

Special Jury awards were conferred to CJ Rajendra Johar, Javed Ahmed and Dinesh Gupta for becoming inspiration to mankind. The Eminent Jury Award went to actor Rahul Bose. The jury of CJ Awards included Kiran Bedi, Madhu Trehan, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Nandita Das, Prasoon Joshi, Neelam Krishnamoorthy and Arvind Kejriwal.

The whole event had a grand feel since it was made of the common men who took up the onus on themselves to put forward various nagging concerns. Encouraging citizen journalism is very essential since the silent sufferers gain a voice to reach out and question the burning problems that they face. The whole idea of giving the layman a platform through sending photos, videos and writing blogs is worth appreciating.

But then every cause for which a citizen fights is important to him and the people of that locality. Can one CJ effort be put forth as better than the others? Along with the encouragement that the CJ awards bring with them are they introducing a streak of competitiveness amongst the citizen journalists? Well of course a healthy competition is good unless it dilutes the true spirit of citizen journalism, the true spirit to bring about a change.

Hail Cyber Medium!

It is Cyber Age. Internet, like a genie is granting all your wishes! Is it just communication that’s making internet People’s Medium? Let’s get deeper enlisting some features that we use everyday yet never realize how important and indispensable internet has grown to be in our lives.

FREE AND EASY COMMUNICATION

e-mails-Your Own Cyber Address: Most of us today own an electronic mail id which is our own cyber address. Your mail box saves you of visits to the post office and also impatient waiting of the post man. Access your mail sitting anywhere on earth at any time, you have the luxury of staying connected. . Some of the most popular web mail services available are Yahoo! Mail, Google Gmail and Microsoft's Hotmail.

IMS, Voice chat, Video Conferencing.: Chat the Cyber way, free of Cost: Once telephone was the only medium to talk to a person real-time. Internet today enables you to text chat with a person using Instant Message Services like g-talk, yahoo messenger. You can also voice chat through any of these. Connect a web cam to your PC and you can even let the one you are chatting with, see you. And for all this you don’t need to pay except of course for your Internet connection.

Social Networking Websit-Create your niche and Stay Connected. : Orkut, Face book, Hi Five, you definitely have your account in any one of these. These enable you to connect with your old school mates, college mates, far flung relatives and also with your colleagues. Also in the process we create our own niche here. A home page that talks ‘About Me’, about your social, personal and professional information. There are innumerable communities that you identify with and join them instantly. This gives you a sense of identity and your community defines yourself for others. Upload your snaps and favourite videos; flaunt what people think about you through the testimonials. Add as many extra applications like ‘Astrology’, ‘Books I read’ etc to your profile.

Blog it! It’s my Voice : No editor to ruthlessly reject your thoughts! Now you can not only fearlessly voice your thoughts through Blogs but also be read by people all around the world. Your work stays fresh in the Cyberspace lest you delete it. Your blog may contain a mixture of text, pictures, videos and music. Some blogs may only concentrate on photos (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos(vlog) etc. Here you get freedom to express, so do others. People who read you have the freedom to leave comments on your blog and even rate it.

MULTIMEDIA THROUGH INTERNET

The web uses multiple content form like audio, video, text, graphics etc. A lot of interesting websites have been created that we all frequent not only to read, listen or see, but also adding our own content to it ie User Generated Content.

Photo sharing : Gone are the days of photo albums and the painful posting of snaps to relatives and friends. With the coming of photo sharing websites you can upload your snaps, edit and organizes them and share them with your friends and family online. Online applications like Fickr are widely used for photo management and sharing.

Video Sharing : Now an internet user can shoot a video or make a movie using snaps and upload it on video sharing website for viewing. Power now doesn’t rest in the hands of elite few; common man today can voice his/her opinions through such websites. One famous video sharing website is Youtube. From old TV serials, movies, news stories to personal videos can be shared here. If you have software called Youtube Downloader, you can even download them with ease and also convert them into other video formats.

Music Sharing: Many websites like cooltoad, imeem run on the principle of music sharing. You have audio clippings or music, create an account and upload it on these websites. You can also download the stuff uploaded by other users.

Live Casting : It refers to the online transmission of various TV programs, live. Although you may be in a different time zone you can now watch TV programs online, as they are telecast in their original places. Such websites also allow you to see the pre recorded videos according to your convenience. Some such websites are watchindia.tv , Justin.tv etc.

INFORMATION AND ENTERTAINMENT THROUGH INTERNET

Just Google It! : Some years back when you needed information you had to rummage through thick encyclopedias, magazines and newspaper stacks. Today you need some information, be it for academic purposes or browsing through latest models of digital camera or searching archives of newspaper online you essentially say ‘Just google it’. Search engines like Google and Yahoo! have turned into guides for anything and everything. What to say you even get to know which shampoo to use and which not to by going through websites like ‘mouthshut.com’ which has users reviewing various products and rating them.

News Websites: Be it a TV News Channel , Newspaper or Magazines, most of them take great pain in making their presence felt online too. Majority of them have their own websites that have text, pictures, videos, graphics and most important, they provide immense interface between the readers and the channel. This is because unlike in other media, websites can and do allow the readers to post their comments and also indulge in Citizen Journalism by blogging their thoughts. Such facilities are provided by the website of CNN IBN called ‘ibnlive’, website of Time Now called ‘timesnow.tv’ , The Hindu’s ‘hinduonnet’ etc.

Gaming Sites : Feel like taking time out and relaxing? Hit websites like zapak.com, arcadegames, yahoogames, bigfishgames etc. You get to choose from varieties like arcade, action, puzzle, mystery and the list goes on. These sites are extremely famous with youngsters for obvious reasons.

Online Bill Paying, Online ticket booking : We don’t have to take monthly rounds of our Banks , Telephone exchanges, plane or railways ticket booking doesn’t now need a middle man. You can pay your bills online, book your tickets online. Hail Internet for making our lives so convenient!

It is a guide, it enables you to stay connected, it makes your tasks easier.

It’s Omnipotent, it’s omniscient….God? No!

It’s is Internet. Internet that has unknowingly gained the stature of an all knowing individual. Internet that has morphed into the most POPULAR PEOPLE’S Medium. Hail Cyber Medium!

Kyunki Saas-Bahu Ka Nahi Raha Zamaana

A 'gharelu' Gujrati bahu enthusiastically showing you around her house with a 100 watt smile, the time when the Virani’s became your next door family who gave you a generous peek into their lives. In 2000 when Ekta Kapoor launched Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi on Star Plus, we never imagined that it’s going to hypnotise the Indian folks and keep them glued for 8 long years using conspiring, heavily decked up vamps, the ‘ache ghar ki, bechari Bahu’ and the well mannered husband who married and created offsprings both in and out of wedlock, died and made a come back uncountable number of times! Along with Tulsi Virani, the mangalsutra, the sindoor style and those saaris became a rage among the majority of Indian women especially the married. After Kyunki, a battalion of Saas Bahu sagas mushroomed on the Indian TV Channels; these soaps cashing on the Indian values, love, hatred, marriages, mystery, death, struggle and songs, in short a 3 hour Commercial Hindi Movie stretched on for years and years together. Well the Indian audience went into a feeding frenzy gobbling up all these saas bahu sagas greedily. A new crop of India Telly emerged, the dramatic K Serials which bore the trademark of Ekta Kapoor and her fetish of K that she thought brought luck. The K serials became popular to the extent that they were fit to get an entry into Oxford Dictionary. For quite a long time we saw them taking away all the Star Parivaar awards, we celebrated with them festivals, we fretted with them, and we stood up as if it was a national crisis when Mihir of Kyunki died!

But somewhere down the line, we lost serials of substance. And of late the TV channels are buzzing with something called ‘Reality shows’ which is the latest hit among the audience. Reality Shows like Indian Idol, MTV Roadies, Splitsvilla, Big Boss, Junoon kuch kar dikhane ka, Nach Baliye, Chak de bache, Comedy Circus are slowly strangling the multitude of hollow Saas Bahu soaps and why not when these reality shows have elite judges, performances and all drama, but this time all real. Though it is being suspected that a lot of drama is scripted it doesn’t really affect their popularity since we looove to gossip, don’t we? Another new crop of serials is making its presence felt. Serials with substance like ‘Baalika Vadhu’ (talks of child marriage), Radha ki Betiyaan (talks of struggle of survival of a mother and 3 daughters in Mumbai), Remote Control (talks of a middle class family growing suddenly rich) and the intelligently revamped epics like Ramayan and Mahabharat.

No wonder one after other the K’s have been slowly vanishing out of the TV space. The latest buzz in the Telly world is that the mother of all Saas Bahu Sagas, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi is coming to an end in the first week of November. A heave of relief for those who hate K soaps and a sigh of sadness for those who still follow it religiously. But oh c’mon how many times do you think the script writers can write and rewrite the same stories this way and that way, how many times can the camera whoosh in and whoosh out at a dizzying speed?

Now that the poularity of K serials is plunging, I wonder what’s wrong with that auspicious K that Ekta cautiously prefixed her serial titles with. Well, they started the trend of multiple comebacks following multiple deaths of a character. So who knows Kyunki that is exiting now may comeback after some plastic surgeries of content and concepts! Till then let’s taste the new wave in Indian Telly, the reality shows and the non- saas bahu soaps. Kyunki, saas-bahu ka nahi raha zamaana.