Bengaluru’s billionaire club floats Rs100-cr trust to promote responsible media

22 Sep 2015

1

Bengaluru's billionaire club has embarked on a new mission of fostering independent and responsible journalism and has set up an Independent and Public Spirited Media Trust (IPSMT) with a Rs100-crore corpus towards funding eligible e-media ventures.

While Wipro chairman Azim Premji, philanthropist and a Infosyas co-founder Nadan Nilekani's wife Rohini Nilekani and Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar Shah are spearheading the media revolution, 10 others, including Vikram Lal of Delhi-based Eicher Motors - makers of the Royal Enfield motorcycles - are part of the media trust.

Registered as a trust, the Independent Media Trust proposes to fund independent digital media companies, which pursue quality and responsible journalism.

This is the first time a trust has been formed in India to fund online media ventures in a country where the print media and the television rule the roost.

Online media in India seems to have taken the backstage while several online e-commerce ventures are making their presence felt with investor and entrepreneurial support.

Rohini Nilekani, herself a former journalist is believed to have invested Rs30 crore in the trust that will give a fresh lease of life to new -age media.

Rohini Nilekani, who owns more Infosys shares than her husband Nandan Nilekani, has been steadily diluting her stake in the technology major to support developmental work through her organisation Arghyam, which funds NGOs.

Arghyam already supports independent media efforts such as Economic & Political Weekly (EPW).

Rohini is also one of the founders of data journalism project, Indiaspend.org.

IPSMT will act as a venture capital fund to promote independent and public spirited media ventures. It will not just seek returns on capital but in quality content and a real interest in people's issues, governance and democracy,

''It will invest in and make grants in the independent and public spirited media space and, hopefully, also invent in the ecosystem around independent media,'' The Sunday Express quoted Rohini Nilekani as saying in an emailed statement.

''On behalf of many donors, I can say that we hope it will create a sustainable space to foster great reporting and coverage, especially in the digital space that allows for a deeper discourse in our democracy,'' the report quoted her as saying.

The media trust, which is intended to support independent media, has been in the planning stage for quite some time and has the potential to emerge as the India equivalent of the public funded British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the National Public Radio of the United States.

''We are backing measured, balanced and responsible reporting instead of propaganda, one-sided opinions and scare-mongering,'' the report quoted Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw as saying.

None of the Media Trust's backers will have a direct say in which digital ventures the Trust can back – that will be decided by a group of eminent executives of the trust.

''The funders will not run it, all funders will have a hands-off approach,'' said Anurag Behar, CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation.

That will be decided by the Trust's chief executive officer and a search is currently on to recruit one.

The trust's board, which will be chaired by journalist TN Ninan, chairman of the Business Standard newspaper, will have private equity investor and philanthropist Ashish Dhawan, former chairman of market regulator Sebi CB Bhave and historian-author Ramachandra Guha as members.

Business History Videos

History of hovercraft Part 3...

Today I shall talk a bit more about the military plans for ...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of hovercraft Part 2...

In this episode of our history of hovercraft, we shall exam...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of Hovercraft Part 1...

If you’ve been a James Bond movie fan, you may recall seein...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of Trams in India | ...

The video I am presenting to you is based on a script writt...

By Aniket Gupta | Presenter: Sheetal Gaikwad

view more