As Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) celebrates its 52nd Foundation Day on Wednesday, it is also turning a new chapter in its legacy. Just over four months in office, Director General of the institute KG Suresh is planning to revive the institute and restore its “pristine glory” as a premier institute setting a benchmark for media training. According to KG Suresh, over the years the premier media institute has grown in quantity but has lost quality somewhere.
“Being the first media training institute in the country, IIMC is still certainly a brand. But over the years, maybe it has lost some of its sheen. Today there is a feeling that the creme de la crème of the media aspirants go to some other good institutions that have come up. Over the last few months after taking charge here, I have set a goal for myself to restore the pristine glory of the institute,” KG Suresh said.
He said that while there has been a growth in quantity, with number of regional centres increasing from one to five, improvement in quality hasn’t quite caught up.
“To change that, we have taken a number of initiatives. I have a vision to turn the regional centres into full-fledged North, East, South, West and North-East Regional Campuses. This will enhance their identities as we turn them into regional hubs. They will no more be the ‘centers’ to cater to leftover students of Delhi but will have their own identities. We have already taken possession of land to set up our own Campuses in Jammu and Amravati. Also, in Kottayam, we have decided to start course for Malayalam journalism and in Amravati, we have also decided to start Marathi journalism,” he added.
In his tenure as Director General of IIMC, Suresh intends to focus on equipping students with not only technical skills but also focus on exposure to other disciplines to prepare them for the ever-demanding media industry.
“We need to move away from superficial journalism. That’s why our focus in IIMC is on exposure to history, political science, economic studies, constitutional studies etc. We bring experts of these fields to train journalists of tomorrow. I have also decided to focus on rural journalism and give exposure of agricultural practices to the students, with India still being primarily an agrarian country. We intend to take students to agricultural farms and make them well versed with rural areas and their practices so they have deep knowledge of what forms a significant part of India and can efficiently communicate about the same,” he said.
In the works of new media, Suresh has made it a point to equip future journalists of the technical skills. “While we used to teach new media in our institution, but we ourselves were not on social media. So after taking over, I decided to set up a dedicated YouTube channel, Twitter and other social media accounts of the institute. Now we have an active online presence. And it came in handy during the recent admission session as there was consistent interaction between the aspirants with us,” he said, adding, he has also set up a New Media IT department on the campus.
I have started dedicated yoga room, students should be physically fit to face the harsh reality of media world and we are promoting AYUSH. This year institute has started APNA Community Radio station 96.9 FM. Besides, Suresh has also revived the ‘Communicator’ a journal of the IIMC, which was defanged. “Within next three months, the journal will be quarterly in complete new format.”