By
Ratnesh Dwivedi
Press Club of India
Background
The Press Club of India is a club of journalists in India. It is located in New Delhi and is very close to the seat of power – The Parliament and the President’s House. It is a place where journalists come and meet, organize seminars, conclaves and cultural activities.
The Press Club of India was founded on December 20, 1957 and incorporated as a company on March 10, 1958. It was inaugurated by the then Home Minister Mr. G B Pant on February 2, 1959 at the present site. Mr.Durga Dass, the then Editor of The Hindustan Times was elected its first president by common consent. Another veteran journalist Mr. D R Mankekar became the first secretary general of the Club.
It is enshrined in the PCI constitution that the institution is meant to work for media related activities. The Press Club of India works towards maintaining media freedom in the country. It is not a constitutional or legal body, but is just a private organization, in the form of a company, that works as a pressure group for the media. It regularly organizes meetings, symposiums and seminars on various media related activities. Some examples from recent past are – Meeting to protest against one-day ban on TV news channel NDTV, protest meet against hate speeches and killings, meeting for law to protect journalists etc.
Thus the Press Club of India isn’t empowered to launch media policies, but they can work as pressure groups to demand certain action from the government.
The Press Club of India also organizes cultural and other events sponsored by foreign embassies. For example, they organized a food festival for Pakistan and Bangladesh embassies, medical seminar by embassy of Cuba, etc.
Organization
The office of the Press Club of India comprises of President, Vice President, Secretary General, Joint Secretary and Treasurer. Besides, there is a managing committee that consists of 16 members. Following is the list of office bearers of the Press Club of India. Following is the list of the office bearers of the Press Club of India:
- MrGautamLahiri – President
- MrManoranjanBharati – Vice President
- Vinay Kumar – Secretary General
- MrJomy Thomas – Joint Secretary
- MrArun Kumar Josh – Treasurer
Managing Committee
- MrAnantBagaitkar
- Anita Choudhary
- MrAuragzeb Naqshbandi
- Dinesh Tewari
- Mr G Krishna Mohan Rao
- MsJyotika Grover
- MrKalyanBarooah
- Mr Manan Kumar
- MsMohua Chatterjee
- MrNeeraj Thakur
- Mr Rakesh Negi
- Mr Ravi Batra
- MsSamridhi Bhatnagar
- Mr Sanjay Singh
- MrSudhiRanjan Sen
- Mr Vijay Shankar Chaturvedi
Besides the office bearers, there over 7,000 members of the Press Club of India. Most of them come from a journalistic background, while a few are from other professional fields.
The website of the Press Club of India is http://www.pressclubofindia.org/
Email – [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PressClubIndia/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PressClubOfI1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The address is:
Press Club of India,RaisinaRoad, New Delhi-110001
Phone Numbers – 011-23719844 | +011-213034700
Mode of Operation
The president is the most powerful officer of the Press Club of India. Elections are held annually for all the office posts. The Secretary General is another important position in the Press Club of India. The Club holds Genral Body Meet for elections and to pass orders and ratifications. It is easily possible to interview the office bearers and requests can be made either personally or through the Office Secretary of the Club, MrJitendra Singh (Phone number – 011 -23719844).
On China
As trained and experienced journalists, the journalists of the Press Club of India generally do issue-based reporting on China. These journalists work for various print, TV, radio and online news platforms. A large number of them are freelancers, which means that they don’t report for a single media house but write for various platforms.
The key focus in most of the reporting is on China’s economic growth, border disputes and tensions often find place in headlines, China’s relations with Indian neighbours, especially Pakistan is another big arear of reportage.
Some of the examples of China related reporting by members of the Press Club of India are pasted below:
Teesta Pact: Bangladesh Pushes for China’s intervention – By GautamLahiri
“To resolve the Teesta river water sharing agreement with India, Bangladesh has proposed a unique idea to include China in the river water management programme. Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina’s advisor HT Imam, who holds the rank of a cabinet minister, said that China should be brought into the picture and all the three countries should discuss the matter. Immediately, after saying so he clarified that it was his personal opinion. “
China-India in a new face-off – By SudhiRanjan Sen
“Chinese and Indian soldiers are engaged in a major stand-off in Ladakh after Chinese troops yesterday stopped work on the construction of an irrigation canal being built under the rural development or MNREGA scheme, sources told NDTV”
India has only itself to blame – By SudhiRanjan Sen
“No government in India has ever tried to engage the people-at-large in a debate with the motive of informing them that India’s claim over Aksai Chin isn’t very strong and perhaps even arbitrary.
More importantly, no government has tried to build a consensus that a resolution of the China-India border issue will require some give-and-take compromising of territory. Lack of political maneuverability has New Delhi in a bind.
To be fair, China has shown much more flexibility. It has given ample indication to India in the last 60 years that it is willing to concede to India in the east, if India were to re-consider its claim over Aksai Chin”.
Ratnesh Dwivedi
Ratnesh Dwivedi transferred his skills of the Media Industry into his passion for writing, teaching and commenting on Global Affairs. He has seen the changing face of global politics as a budding media professional who regularly comments on the changing equation between U.S., Middle East and South Asia. He has been writing on the U.S. led strike on Iraq and post war reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later he continued his association with President George W Bush as a Charter Member of the George W Bush Presidential Center, Texas. The center is home to documentation of President Bush’s double tenure and consists of a library and museum.
Apart from his association with the Bush Center, Ratnesh Dwivedi is associated with several other organizations. He is Chapter Member with the Internet Society, a global non-profit organization which works for popularity of the internet. Ratnesh is also associated with the European Communication Research and Education Association, a premier media research organization in Europe. He is also an Individual Member with the Institute of English Studies, University of London and has a non-member status with the American Astronomical Society.
He has authored five books. ‘The Story of an Intern’ is a reportage book of the struggle of an intern in the big bad media world, while ‘The Cosmic Mask’ is a compilation of nine space fiction stories which he self published with an Amazon company. Third and fourth are awarded academic books. His fifth book on US Intelligence and Cost of War was released in 2015.
Ratnesh Dwivedi bears the honor of attending several high rated workshops of NASA and continuously follows NASA updates. Ratnesh loves to be categorized as a prolific writer, commentator and academician.
Ratnesh Dwivedi attained his Masters Degree from the University of Lucknow in Journalism and Mass Communication in 1999 and is currently pursuing a doctorate on “International Terrorism and Television Channels: Operation and Regulation of Television Channels During Coverage of 9/11 and 26/11” from Amity University, India under the supervision of Dr Sarah T Partlow, Director and Professor at Idaho State University, U.S.
He has been associated with Amity University, where he led a project to set up Community Radio Station and TV Studio apart from his teaching assignment. He is widely published academician in the field of Media and Communication with nearly 30 publications and presentations in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Britain, USA and India.
He is serving as Director-CRS at Teerthankar Mahaveer University in India. He is Consultant with a NJ, a U.S. based Energy Firm, Advisors Energy Group and serves as Country Manager-India with London, UK based Cyber Security Firm-Orion-SAS. He reports for a China based think tank and contributes for global online magazine Tuck. He is Head of India with an Italian based CounterTerrorism entity which works with partner agencies around the globe. He lives in New Delhi with his wife and son.
Informative. Thanks