IMPHAL, February 9: The North East Gateway, a news channel that will collaborate with national and other regional channels in English, Hindi and regional languages was launched in Imphal on Sunday at Manipur Press Club, Majorkhul.
Former president of the All Manipur Working Journalist Union (AMWJU), AK Sanaton and former president of ISTV Network attended the launching of northeast gateway as chief guest and president of the function respectively.
Giving the keynote address, the CMD of the Northeast Gateway, Premjit Ningthemcha expressed that he had waited for six long years and two months to accommodate the news of the state in the national channels so that various issues of Manipur and other northeastern states could be highlighted to the entire country.
“The news of the state is seldom telecast by the national media. The telecast of locally important news occurs once or twice a year. To overcome such situation, I have been searching for a solution. All this problem will find its solution with the Northeast Gateway which will work with national and regional channels. I will telecast a particular news, if necessary, 365 days a year so that national attention could be attracted,” Premjit said.
The telecast of the Northeast Gate will start from February 18 but the official launch is being organised on Sunday in a hurried manner here in Imphal as Premjit has to leave Imphal on Monday for New Delhi.
Addressing the gathering as a chief guest, AK Sanaton lauded Premjit for realising his dream project as the national media lacks coverage of the northeast and Manipur which have created misunderstanding and communication gap between the northeast people and mainland India.
He further mentioned that the media is the immediate mirror of the society and acts as watchdog of the society by highlighting various grievances of the people and also seeks a means to redress the grievances.
Apart from this, he also reminded the media community of the state from his experience that the distribution of PDS items such as kerosene and superfine rice by the elected representatives should not be news item, instead Manipur media houses should try to minimise corrupt practices of the state with the media practice of investigative journalism.
He opined that non telecast of regional issues in the national channels leads to communication gap between the NE people and mainland India thereby creating a mindset of differences to the Aryan stock towards Mongoloid stock concentrated in the NE region. Sanaton further added that national media could minimise this differences by highlighting the geography and people of India across the country that India is a country which is populated by three major stocks such as the Mongoloid, the Dravidian and the Aryans.
Giving his presidential address, Kh Kuleshor said that the launching of the news channel is timely as it will highlight various issues of the downtrodden people of the region especially the state of Manipur. Narrating his experiences as former president of ISTV, national channel lacks interest to telecast state issues like that of Rabina/Sanjit and also Manorama adding that national media telecast ISTV sent Manipur footage without mentioning acknowledgement or credit to its sender.
He also wished the media channel a grand success.