Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2019

Media Ownership Monitor: Who owns the media in India?

Media Ownership Monitor: Who owns the media in India?                     Asad Mirza The Media Ownership Monitor (MOM) project, a global research and advocacy effort to promote transparency and media pluralism at an international level, was initiated by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2015. In India, it conducted the Media Ownership Monitor project together with Delhi based digital media company, DataLEADS . The key findings of the Media Ownership Monitor and the detailed results of the study were made public at a function in New Delhi, today (29 May 2019). The key findings provide a vivid and interactive picture of the Indian media landscape by disclosing who owns and ultimately controls mass media. "India is one of the biggest media markets in the world. However, the concentration of ownership of media shows that a handful of people own and control Indian media. Our research captures ownership structures and reflects on media pluralism. This is an important

27 May '19 "After 2019, what?" My article in Daily Etemaad, Hyderabad

How the Muslims vote in 2019.

How the Muslims vote in 2019. Asad Mirza The results of the 2019 elections to constitute the 19 Lok Sabha were a bit of unexpected, even for the winners and the ruling party. Even though various theories are doing the rounds of large scale rigging, change of EVMs etc. Yet, the most important point to ponder is that how many votes the ruling BJP was able to muster from the largest minority community of the country. An analysis of detailed results constituency by constituency points out the fact that Muslims across India, indeed voted for the BJP. There are 46 constituencies in the country which have more than 35% Muslim population. Of these the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won on 14 seats in 2019. While it had won in all the 12 Muslim majority constituencies of Uttar Pradesh in 2014, in 2019 it won in only five such constituencies —Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Bahraich and Bareilly. A comparative analysis of the votes polled in 2014 and in 2019 in the seve

After 2019, whither Indian Muslims?

After 2019, what? Asad Mirza Since, early morning by when the election trends started pouring in on every TV channel and social media platform. A pall of gloom seems to have descended on every Muslim locality in the country. But the moot question to answer is, are we ourselves responsible for this? The answer to this is, both yes and no. Before the elections a lot of debate was focussed on the tactical voting by Muslims. But the trends seem to belie this. As the trends indicate, in Delhi and Bihar to some extent is some seats of UP, where they were supposed to vote tactically, at the last moment they shifted their allegiance to the Congress and as a result, BJP is leading in all these seats. The trends have also established the fact that India is going to be a, minority hating, democracy hating, anti-secular Hindu Rashtra, where one religion and one perverse ideology is going to dominate the entire nation. The election results have also brought home two stark real

Madrasa Education in India – A Need for Reorientation

Madrasa Education in India – A Need for Reorientation Asad Mirza During the last ten years or so, Madrasa Education in India has been a subject of interest, debate and prominence both in the educational and research circles, in media and of course the civil and political discourse. Based on different research studies and the demand for Capacity Building of Madrasa in India, the British High Commission in India in partnership with Dept. Of Social Work, Jamia Millia Islamia under Prof SM Sajid and an NGO of Delhi-Minorities Initiative for Learning, Advancement and Partnership (MILAP) started a Capacity Building Programme for Madrassa Teachers and Students, which later became known as MILAP Programme, modeled by Prof SM Sajid and Asad Mirza. The Capacity Building of Madrasas (CBM) was based on inputs from madrassa teachers, administrators, religious scholars and educationists. To gauge the real need of madrassas for both its teachers and students, a preparatory consultative