Shantanu Gupta, is the founder of The Ramayana School, an Indian Author, TEDx Speaker and TV Panelist. He is a published author with renowned publications like Sage, Bloomsbury, Garuda, Prabhat and Rupa Publications. He is the biographer of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, with his book titled ‘The Monk Who Became Chief Minister’ - Biography of Yogi Adityanath, and its listed as the ‘Most memorable Non-Fiction Books of 2017’ by Amazon India. Shantanu wrote a sequel to this book with title – The Monk Who Transformed Uttar Pradesh. His another Book - BJP – Past, Present & Future is now available in four Indian languages. Shantanu has an engineering degree from GB Pant University (India), Management education from XLRI, Jamshedpur (India) and did his masters in policy and politics from Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex (United Kingdom). Shantanu has worked for a decade as a process and management consultant in many cities in India, Switzerland, Cyprus, Hungry and Israel. He has represented India in many international conferences on economy and policy, in Germany, Malaysia & Srilanka. He has worked with thinks tanks like Center for Civil Society (CCS) and non-profits like UNICEF, Naandi Foundation and National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA).
Find more about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantanu_Gupta
Ms Niharika Chug started the session with the question that why nowadays media houses need to be in nexus with politicians. Shantanu Gupta and Arun Anand explained that what is seen as a nexus between politicians and media houses, is not happening today, but it is happening from the time before Indian freedom. With the example of Mahatma Gandhi who then used media to attract the attention of western influencers towards the plight of India under British Rule. Mr Arun Anand explained that the media is being utilized by politicians to communicate with the people for a long time. Mr Shantanu told the audience that earlier the foreign trips of Prime Ministers used to see a big contingent of journalists accompanying the PM on their foreign visits. Now since reports are given directly by the government the journalists who are missing the free journeys are making this cry of the recent nexus of journalists and politicians. Mr Bhuoendra Chubey with many examples informed the audience that the media is being used by the ruling dispensation for their purpose. He also told the audience that the journalists who ask questions to the governments let it be central or state governments have to face dire consequences from those governments. The session was extended by another forty minutes as the hall was full of an enthusiastic audience who wanted to know more from the panel.