Ishwar Chandra Gupta Memorial Lecture, 2021

The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, The Bhawanipur Education Society College has initiated a series of annual memorial lectures on eminent Bengali journalists from the year 2021. The topics for the annual memorial lectures shall be topical in nature in addressing the contemporary issues, prospects and challenges of modern-day journalism as emerging with time in India and the world as a whole. The first of these annual memorial lectures was held on 22nd January, 2021 in memory of the pioneering Bengali journalist and editor, Ishwar Chandra Gupta (March 6, 1812–January 23, 1859).

The event was held online on January 22, 2021 on Google Meet platform. The topic for the inaugural Ishwar Chandra Gupta Memorial Lecture was “Journalism at Crossroads: Between the Power and the People”. The Guest of Honour for the event was Mr. Subir Ghosh who is an author of several books and monographs on Journalism and Mass Communication while the Keynote Speaker for the event was Mr. Sudipta Sengupta, a well-known working journalist and the founder of 4thpillars.com, a Bengali news web portal. In his guest address,
Mr. Subir Ghosh enlightened the students with the life and works of Ishwar Chandra Gupta. He also shared a few very interesting but little-known facts about Ishwar Chandra Gupta and his famous publication, the ‘Sambad Prabhakar’ which also went on to become the first Bengali daily newspaper. In his keynote address, Mr. Sudipta Sengupta emphasized the immense relevance of the topic in question both from the standpoint of the times of Ishwar Chandra Gupta when he himself had to practice journalism under the constant vigil of a colonial rule and the present times when journalists still have to reach out to the people even as the powers-that-be keep a watch on journalistic reports across the country and cutting across various platforms.
The keynote address was followed by an interactive session with the students. The event concluded with the vote of thanks by the Ms. Priyam Basu Thakur.