Indian Media Ownership Facts…
Who owns the media in India ?There are several major publishing groups in India, the most prominent among them being the Times of India Group, the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group, The Hindu group, the Anandabazar Patrika Group, the Eenadu Group, the Malayalam Manorama Group, the Mathrubhumi group, the Sahara group, the Bhaskar group, and the Dainik Jagran group. Let us see the ownership of these media agencies.
NDTV: A very popular TV news media is funded by the Gospels of Charity in Spain which supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because the Ex-President Musharraf had allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan. Indian Division CEO Prannoy Roy is the co-brother of Prakash Karat, General Secretary of Communist Party of India. His wife and Brinda Karat are sisters.
India Today which used to be the only national weekly who supported BJP is now bought by NDTV and since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing. No prizes for guessing why.
CNN-IBN: This is 100 percent funded by Southern Baptist Church with its branches in all over the world with HQ in US. The Church annually allocates $800 million for promotion of its channel. Its Indian heads are Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.
Times group list: Times Of India, Mid-Day, Nav-Bharth Times, Stardust , Femina, Vijaya Times, Vijaya Karnataka, Times now (24- hour news channel) and many more. Times Group is owned by Bennet & Coleman. ‘World Christian Council‘ does 80 percent of the Funding, and an Englishman and an Italian equally share balance 20 percent. The Italian Robertio Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.
Star TV: It is run by an Australian, who is supported by St. Peters Pontificial Church, Melbourne.
Hindustan Times: Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in Collobration with Times Group (refer above).
The Hindu: English daily, started over 125 years has been recently taken over by Joshua Society, Berne, Switzerland. N.Ram’s wife is a Swiss national.
Indian Express: Divided into two groups:The Indian Express and The New Indian Express (southern edition): ACTS Christian Ministries have major stake in the Indian Express and later is still with the Indian counterpart.
Eeenadu: Still to date controlled by an Indian named Ramoji Rao. Ramoji Rao is connected with film industry and owns a huge studio in Andhra Pradesh .
Andhra Jyothi: The Muslim Party of Hyderabad known as MIM along with a Congress Minister has purchased this Telugu daily very recently.
The Statesman: It is controlled by the Communist Party of India.
Kairali TV: It is controlled by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Mathrubhoomi: Leaders of Muslim League and Communist Leaders have major investment.
Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle: Is owned by a Saudi Arabian Company with its chief Editor M.J. Akbar.
This is a very popular E-Mail Forward & I am sure a lot of us have received it. I am posting this because disinformation has become an important factor of politics and international relations and I wonder if so much of “interest” in Indian Media is all with good intentions. To read about web disinformation (or related, I am not very sure, click here)
Cool, thanks.
What I would take away from this post is that our thoughts and political views are shaped by the media that we rely on and the media itself is shaped by the people that run it, support it and finance it. Many people aren’t aware of this and take everything on face value. That’s the reason it’s important to read publications from different houses.
I like to read BBC, CNN and The Economist on most occasions. I watch FOX just for a kick
It’s too pro right for my liking.
OHH Thats a news in itself for me….I knew about Eenadu and know about Hindu but dint know others….Hmm….do u knw how is it in other countries?? just curious
@ Harshad: Appreciate it.
@Ruhi: Media is a powerful weapon (if not the most powerful) in today’s politics. If you remember, Tamil Nadu was vehemently against teaching Hindi even as 3rd Language to children in the state – in fact, people who participated in such protest marchs were awarded “Tyagi” status in the state. And that has become the main reason for the continuous Dravidian Parties coming to power in the state. BJP or Congress haven’t been able to break in with their main stream ideologies.
We, as city dwellers are so dependent on the media – so when Christian Houses are financing & ruling the media, they would but obviously paint a grimmer picture of news items like “Atrocities against Christians in Orissa” or “Hindu Terror” – and I am sure that if Hindu Houses were in the same position, they would have equally misused their power.
Apart from the Hindu (which I respect for the language & respectability it has brought to news reporting since decades) & to some extent the Indian Express in India, I personally think that publications like Times of India, Hindustan Times, Mid-Day, Mumbai Mirror, DNA etc. are tissue papers. They hardly have pure representation of facts; mostly it is popularism & hype that rules. Some of the obscene pictures ToI uses can put anybody in shame.
The problem is, it is no more news reporting – it is a political weapon & a multi-million business.
@ Sahaja: That would take some research – will try to get the info.
Oh boy! Tamil Nadu and Hindi just don’t go well together, eh?
I’ve stopped questioning the quotient. Maybe I’ll never understand it because I don’t feel so strongly for any regional language. It’s difficult for me to put myself in their shoes and understand their point of view. It’s probably more political than emotional. I know there’s something more to a person’s mother tongue. But I don’t think these politicians are being driven by their emotions. They are being driven by their egos. And this freaking language divide is being used to create regional barriers all the time.
I really want to find an answer to this question- what makes them cover Abhishek and Aishwarya? Are they paid? Does Bollywood control them? Or is this all that sells in a country where people are so poor that their only source of entertainment is watching/reading about celebrities they can only afford to dream about.
@ Ruhi: Of course it is political – there would be no vote bank if all regions joined the mainstream!! So it is petty politics that makes us worry about the position in which our language features on the currency!! It is not even about their ego – they claim it is the pride of the people and stoke unwarrented sentiments.
The Abhi Ash story or even the SRK story is simple – you scratch my back, I scratch yours – anyways there’s a dearth of quality news, so journalists put up stories of how abhi wears only green undies or why ash refuses to wash them – the couple return the favour by giving goodies: full length interview, special pics, gossip, invites to parties and god knows what more – after all, without the media, we would know only the stars we can surely see – and those are right up there in the sky…
So…is there any actual evidence of this or are you just forwarding the email being circulated around the Net for the past year or so? This is clearly a cut-and-paste job…
Well, I do not have proof & it is clearly, as you very correctly mentioned, cut & paste. Though, I haven’t looked at their MoAs & AoAs, the content is confirmed by a variety of websites on the web, with no rebuttals from any of the mentioned organizations. Let’s do this – you find us proof & I’ll spread the word.