Chetan Sharma, Founder & CEO of India Ahead News and Founder of Educate.tv, was the moderator for the session on University and Communication on the first day of INDICOMMS 2021. He elucidated the situation prevailing in 2020. He said 2020 has been a year where setting the vision was a major factor for all, i.e., what to do and what not to! In his words, “2020 is a year to ‘see’ correctly and now it’s time to correct the ‘C’”.
SMX Networks had organized a two-day Media, Entertainment, and Communication Summit named INDICOMMS 2021 in association with Adamas University (University partner), Innoserv Digital (Digital partner), ORAI Robotics (AI partner), ASMA, and Asentrek Global (community partner). This mega summit continued for two days, 4th-5th March 2021, with many eminent speakers across the globe. This mega event aimed to examine the current scenario and identify new trends and best practices emerging in the media, communication and entertainment industries.
Sharma has been a prolific face on prime-time National television for over 25 years. He has worked across multiple news organisations including NDTV, India Today, Aaj Tak, Zee News, Star News, ESPN, Bloomberg and AI Jazeera English.
Setting the Discussion – C
The session started with a jovial introduction by him. Moving on to the topic of University and Communication. Here, he represented the word ‘see’ by the letter ‘C’ and explained it in his own way. Sharma said, “This first ‘C’ was Covid itself the dreadful pandemic creating history across the geography in the planet Earth. A minor virus creating a major catastrophe leading to the second ‘C’ – Contact. You have to stop contact, controlled and Limited; were there, in turn, led to the third ‘C’ – Challenge.”
Challenges of 2020
Sharma mentioned challenge he named eight different spheres of physical, sociological, political, mental, physiological, economic, environmental. Moving ahead he elaborated that though the C’s are important the one which is indispensable, critical and constant is ‘Communication’. Then he explained with quick and simple examples how over the years the mode of communication has evolved keeping itself the most wanted. Here we can quote his well-structured beautiful words, Sharma said, “Over the years the nature of communication was altered but never its need; its means have changed but never its medium; its impede has changed but never its importance. From sales to read from silence to violence, from Telegram to Instagram, from ’What’s up?’ to WhatsApp. What we have changed is the form and formation but not so much desire for information. Its abuse that denounces but its use can be never be renounced. What has changed is not how we process it but perhaps the process itself.”
The Three Ts
Then he mentioned three 3 ‘T’s viz. Time, Technologies and Teaching to thank them for the revolution that has emerged in the field of communication. With this, he called up the first speaker Dr Sandeep Marwah, Chancellor, AFT University, followed by Prof. Sandeep Sancheti, VC, Marwadi University and Prof K.G.Suresh, VC ,Makhanlal University of Journalism.
They had a detailed discussion on how the online education system emerged during the pandemic, how it started, how would the teaching community and the learners got adapted to it, and also, they were of the opinion that it has become a part of the teaching-learning process for both teachers and students. They are well accustomed to it now. Discussions related to online examination or a rather open book examination have also had been conducted. Sharma as a moderator ended up the enlightening session with a wonderful conclusion.
The author, Bishakha Banerjee is associated with Adamas University Media School.
