The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “If students are alive to socio-political realities, change can happen”

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 29, 2007
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“If students are alive to socio-political realities, change can happen”

Staff Reporter

Loyola students’ bilingual journal, ‘The College Gate,’ launched

— Photo: M Vedhan

HOPEFUL OPENING: State Secretary of the CPI D. Pandian (second from right) with (from left) Rector, Loyola College, Amal Kulandai Samy, assistant director of Santhome Communication Thisai Jerry, and Loyola College Principal Albert Muthumalai at the launch of the SIFE journal in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: With the increasing use of the Internet, young people prefer to read news online. But they do not want to pay for the content they get. This is posing a serious problem to media organisations which need to find a way to bring in revenue, N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, said at Loyola College here on Friday.

“This is one area where those who have business mind and those who are creative can come up with ideas…the stakes are high and the rewards will be great,” he said at a function held to launch the bilingual journal ‘The College Gate’ of the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) of the college.

The burgeoning mobile phone industry was yet another avenue for transmission of news. But a proper business model needed to be formed, he said.

Mr. Ram added that values such as truth-telling and the concept of justice and fairness were essential requirements in any journalistic enterprise.

State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) D. Pandian said that though English was increasingly becoming an instrument for communication, the mother tongue needed to be preserved as well.

Discussing the decline in the reading of good books, Mr. Pandian said that the most popular books in terms of sales these days were cookery books and those relating to astrology. He then urged the students to make sure that students of other colleges also got to read the SIFE journal.

“The College Gate should connect like-minded people in all colleges,” said Thisai Jerry, assistant director, Santhome Communication. He added that the students needed to ensure they had a clear focus and write on subjects that would make a difference to society.

Amal Kulandai Samy, Rector, Loyola College, cited the example of the students’ movement in Myanmar that first led to the protest against the military dictatorship. “If students are alive to socio-political realities, change can happen,” he said, adding that initiatives like a student journal strengthened the democracy.

Albert Muthumalai, Principal, was also present at the function.

Around 30 students from various colleges in the city also participated in the function. Copies of the journal were distributed to 26 colleges across the city.

Loyola’s SIFE unit was formed last year and has since participated in several outreach programmes, helped to form self-help groups and also helped the Dalit victims of the tsunami in setting up enterprises.

There are 3,275 members registered in the unit.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail