"Vital role for media in exposing human

rights violations"
 Staff Reporter

Comment   ·   print   ·   T  T  

Tweet
inShare

Photo: S. James
Andhra Pradesh High Court Acting Chief Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose speaking at the
inauguration of a 15-day training programme on 'Law, Human Rights and Media' organised by
SOCO Trust in Madurai on Tuesday.
TOPICS

Tamil Nadu

Madurai
arts, culture and entertainment

mass media

politics

human rights

Devotion, discipline, dedication will make you excel in any

field: AP HC Acting Chief Justice
Three Ds — Devotion, Discipline, and Dedication — will make you excel in any chosen field of
yours; and to lead a disciplined and dignified life, one need to adhere to laws and follow them,
said Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, acting Chief Justice, High Court of Andhra Pradesh.

Delivering the inaugural address at a 15-day training course on ‘Law, Human Rights and Media,’
organised by Society for Community Organisation Trust (SOCO) on Tuesday, he said, “Law is a
ocean. Everyday there is some change and I am still a student of law, learning its various
nuances. It is one of the basic social institutions that came as a disciplinary discourse in our lives.
Law comes into action right from the time of a person’s birth as we have to register it and have a
birth certificate and then all our life we have so many things attached to the law and even at the
end of a person’s life he has to write a will and even after death we need a certificate.”

On the role of media, he said that it was playing a vital role with regard to addressing human
rights issues. “It helps us know what is happening in a remote corner of a village if there is
discrimination or violation of human rights. Globalisation and the advent of information
technology and its penetration on a large scale have helped us receive more information. Media
creates opinion of public at large, and we are experiencing and learning the difficulties of men
and the community through the media. It helps us work towards abolishing those difficulties.”

Speaking earlier, B. Thirumalai, senior journalist, said that media’s role in shaping the polity and
cultural aspects of life like influencing our consumption pattern and lifestyle was becoming
larger. Free media was critical to the functioning of democracy. Karl Marx started his career as a
journalist and Mahatma Gandhi also published journals to spread ideas of non-violence and
ahimsa, Mr. Thirumalai said.

Advocates of Madras High Court Prabhu Rajadurai and R.Gandhi and Deputy Director of SOCO
Trust S. Selva Gomathi spoke.

The training programme will have various sessions on role of media, freedom of press, human
rights and environment issues where journalists and advocates in the city would be handling the
topics. The participants include students of Lady Doak College, Fatima College, Yadava
College, M.S.S. Wakf Board College, Thiagarajar College, Mannar Thirumalai Naicker College,
and Madurai Institute of Social Sciences.