Making News
WHEREVER I GO IN THE country, people are eager to know what makes the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) the most preferred destination for media students. My answer is always the same— we train and not just teach, and while training the students, our focus is to produce global leaders for the media. This training is imparted by trained professionals, including faculty and newsroom achievers. IIMC is perhaps the only media training institution in the country that has a good number of industry leaders on its regular faculty. Because of the high level of training, media houses rely on IIMC to hire high quality professionals.
What satisfies me today is the fact that IIMC has gradually maintained this high standard of training. We don't do it just to grab any award or ranking, but to sincerely contribute towards nation-building. Our endeavour is to give our best to the nation. Following the call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, IIMC has prepared a vision document for 2047, and we hope to emerge as the most preferred destination for media training at the global level. We have already started work on this agenda. The infrastructure on all the campuses of IIMC is being upgraded with this goal in mind. Our campuses in Kottayam, Jammu, and Aizawl have already shifted to newly constructed buildings. The plans for upgrading the infrastructure on the Delhi campus are already underway, and we hope to see additions to the existing infrastructure shortly.
The recognition by different media houses, including Open Magazine, in the form of rankings definitely encourages us to take new initiatives. It also motivates us to work harder, set new benchmarks, and achieve them in the shortest amount of time. The first step in maintaining our standard is the regular upgrade of our syllabus to keep pace with the changes in the industry. However, while focusing on training, we do not ignore the required theoretical base, which is well taken care of by our learned faculty.
Another significant aspect of IIMC's training is the regular exposure to national and international newsrooms through industry visits. National and international workshops and seminars also help the students interact with media giants. During the last year, the IIMC Delhi campus alone organised many national and international seminars and workshops. An interaction was organised with the president of EFE, the Spanish news agency, Gabriela Cañas, on February 15, 2023. Similarly, an interaction was organised with Brittani Kollar, the international training manager with MediaWise, US, in September 2022. She spoke on "media literacy" and stressed that we have to empower people with skills that help in identifying misinformation. She emphasised on the role of digital media education to quell misinformation. The governor of the Sulaymaniyah province in Iraq's Kurdistan region, Haval Abubaker, also visited IIMC in April 2023. He mentioned that Indians are contributing significantly to the development of modern Iraq.
It needs no elaboration to say that a journalist has to be up to date. Obviously, classroom teaching and learning have their own limitations for media students. An out-of-the-box initiative by IIMC to keep the students of all its campuses updated is our weekly "Friday Dialogue" lecture series, which was introduced in December 2020. Through this dialogue, the students are sensitised and oriented to the information that is vital for them, but is not discussed in detail in the classroom lectures. For example, the understanding of the election process in India. During the last two years, we have invited former chief election commissioners of India to interact with our students.
During the one-and-a-half-hour discussion, the students interacted openly with the speakers and attempted to grasp the process. Similar sessions were organised on defence reporting, science and technology reporting, etc. Some international agencies, like UNDP, are also engaged in conducting international-level programmes on different issues that are necessary for media students. The speeches delivered during the Friday Dialogue and the discussions held at special events are documented in the form of published books. All such events are live telecast on IIMC's Facebook and YouTube handles so that media students in other institutions can also benefit.
IIMC has six campuses across New Delhi, Dhenkanal (Odisha), Kottayam (Kerala), Amravati (Maharashtra), Aizawl (Mizoram), and Jammu, where a total of nine postgraduate diploma (PGD) courses in English journalism, Hindi journalism, Malayalam journalism, Marathi journalism, Odia journalism, Urdu journalism, radio & television journalism, advertisement & public relations, and digital media are conducted. The digital media course was introduced this year, keeping in mind the changing needs of the media industry. This course is run on three campuses—New Delhi, Jammu, and Aizawl. The seats in the Hindi journalism course have also been increased. Apart from the New Delhi campus, this course is also conducted in Jammu and Amravati. The National Testing Agency (NTA) selects students for all of these courses through a transparent entrance process. The total seats in IIMC have now increased to 582.
English journalism has been the flagship PGD programme of IIMC, offered across all six campuses. The fact that the majority of students are hired by leading media houses immediately after completing the course explains the popularity of IIMC's PGD courses. During the last several years, IIMC has recorded almost 100 per cent placement. This year, we also hope to maintain the same pace of placements.
There may not be even a single leading media house in India where any IIMCian is not found working. Another significant fact about IIMC is that most of the professionals working in lead roles in the leading newsrooms as well as in advertising and public relations organisations in India are IIMCians. Even international media houses, such as Thomson Reuters, BBC, etc, have IIMCians in lead roles.
The extraordinary achievements of IIMC alumni have definitely strengthened the glory of their alma mater. After excelling in their respective areas, they are always at the forefront of social activities and are eager to extend help to the aspiring IIMC students. Under the banner of the IIMC Alumni Association (IIMCAA), they pay it back after growing wings. They help budding journalists with scholarships and mentoring.
Set up with the help of UNESCO professionals, the IIMC was inaugurated on August 17, 1965, by the then Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Indira Gandhi. It is also a training academy for the Indian Information Service (IIS) probationers. A number of specialised short courses of one week to three months' duration are run by the institute to meet the training needs of communication professionals working in various media/publicity outfits of the government and public sector organisations. Since its inception, IIMC has trained about 15,000 people from India and abroad. It also runs a prestigious course in development journalism, which is attended by students from across the world. It is an internationally recognised training institute for mid-level working journalists from Afro-Asian countries.
IIMC is an autonomous body, fully funded by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), GoI. The current chairman of the IIMC society is Apurva Chandra, secretary, I&B ministry. It also has leading media and communication professionals in the Executive Council (EC). IIMC is committed to setting global standards in media education, research and training, using state-of-the-art technology for building a knowledge-driven information society, contributing to human development, empowerment, and participatory democracy, anchored in pluralism, universal values, and ethics. It endeavours to create a dynamic learning and teaching environment that nurtures new ideas, creativity, research, and scholarship, and develops future leaders and innovators in the domain of media and mass communication. These goals are met by involving industry leaders in teaching and providing students with outside-of-classroom perspectives on relevant issues.
IIMC has completed 58 years since its foundation. Apart from excelling in media teaching, IIMC has also been producing high quality content for students and media scholars. Communicator (English) and Sanchar Madhyam (Hindi) are the two prestigious UGC-CARE-listed research journals published by IIMC. During the last two years, three more publications have been started—Rajbhasha Vimarsh, Sanchar Srijan and IIMC News. Communication research is another important dimension of IIMC's activities. It aims to bridge the gaps between theoretical and professional issues in the area of media and communication. More than 160 research and evaluation studies have so far been undertaken on various themes related to broadcasting and press policies, public health and behaviour, social change, multimedia campaigns, film censorship, etc. These initiatives are helpful in creating a knowledge-based society.
The IIMC campus in New Delhi is known for its natural beauty and cleanliness. Apart from two hostels for boys and girls, there is a library, Pt Yugal Kishore Shukla Library & Knowledge Resource Centre, which has been named after Pt Yugal Kishore Shukla, the legendary editor of the first Hindi newspaper, Udant Martand.
When I see the news about IIMC being ranked as the number one media training institution, I humbly remember the tireless efforts of all the former chairpersons, director generals, directors, officers, faculty members, and alumni. IIMC is now gearing up for conversion into a "deemed to be university" under the de novo category. There are plans to introduce five postgraduate degree courses from New Delhi and some other campuses. These innovative courses are expected to give new shape to media training in India. In the coming years, some more postgraduate diploma courses can also be introduced.
Apna Radio, started by IIMC in 2005, has today emerged as a model community radio station where radio professionals from across the country regularly visit. It also helps us impart practical training in radio functioning to the students. In 2005, it was inaugurated with a capacity of four hours of broadcasting per day. Since February 2013, the transmission has been extended to broadcast seven hours of programming a day. The 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' campaign has been a milestone for Apna Radio. Some senior officers of Delhi Police are regulars on our radio station, and cover a range of subjects from Operation Milap on missing children to opening platform schools for ragpickers, from self-defence training for schoolgirls to road safety, etc. We have also been speaking to the doctors of AIIMS and other leading hospitals in Delhi on various health issues, including organ donation.
We are committed to contributing sincerely to the development of the nation under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi. We at IIMC are committed to ensure world-class training for our students while staying connected to our age-old Indian values.