The Dr. Anamika Ray Memorial Trust (ARMT) will organise the 5th Annual National Media Lecture on Monday, December 13 at Gauhati University.
The lecture, organised by the ARMT in collaboration with the Department of Communication and Journalism, Gauhati University, will be held at the Conference Hall of the New Academic Building on the premises of the University. It is scheduled to start at 11 am.
The topic for the lecture will be 'COVID Impact on Media and Entertainment: Possible Trends Ahead' with Prof. Ujjwal K Chowdhury, Secretary, Global Media Education Council; Former Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Adamas University, Kolkata; Dean, Symbiosis, Pune; Amity University, Mumbai, Pearl Academy & Whistling Woods International, delivering the lecture.
Notably, Dr. Anamika Ray Memorial Trust (ARMT) is a Guwahati-based NITI Ayog registered educational and research nonprofit organization established in 2015. ARMT has pioneered the Anti-Medical Terrorism movement in the region, working studiously for the patients' rights and responsibilities since its inception.
ARMT has also worked with a mission mode of recognizing 'Right to Health' as one of the Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution.
Among the diversified fields being affected by COVID in recent years, the crisis looms large on Media and Entertainment industry with many of its associates from senior to junior level losing jobs, facing pay cuts, dysfunctional of many media and entertainment industries – both big and small across the globe. Despite these hardships and perilous effects of COVID, web-led media and entertainment through paid and unpaid OTT platforms; mobile journalism (MoJo), and news portals have acted as a resilient force in today's post-COVID scenario.
The lecture is expected to throw light upon the trend-setting effort that these web-led media have put so far and visualize the possible scenario ahead on a par with the state of media education, media business, and media technologies.
Prof. Chowdhury has maintained this balance of industry-academia relationships himself by heading several prestigious media education institutions in and outside the country; and at the same time working as a media practitioner with various international organisations like WHO, Amsterdam Film School in the Netherlands, Acore Media in Dubai, etc.
Prof. Pratap J Handique, Vice-Chancellor of Gauhati University (GU) will formally inaugurate the Lecture, that will commence at 11 am in Conference Hall, New Academic Building, Gauhati University and also release a book "Gyapon Gabesona" written by Dr. Anamika Ray and Dr. Ankuran Dutta on communication research which is published by State Book Board, Govt of West Bengal. Dr. Hemanta K Nath, Registrar of GU will be giving the welcome address.
The first Lecture was delivered by Prof. Mohan Jyoti Dutta of the National University of Singapore in 2017, followed by Dr. Jatin Srivastava of Ohio University, the USA in 2018; Dr. Pallavi Guha of Towson University, USA and formerly journalist of BBC (UK) in 2019 and Dr. R. Sreedher, Emeritus Professor, AIMC; Former Director, CEMCA; EMPC, IGNOU, New Delhi; AIR, Doordarshan; EMC, Anna University, IIT Roorkee in 2020.
Apart from a chore of mass awareness activities during COVID, the Trust along with the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), GOI produced a multimedia mass awareness document popularly called 'COVID Katha' which later is labelled as a National Document.
