 And it's good to see all of you here on a Saturday morning, including my colleagues whom I rarely see before afternoon, through no fault of my own. This is the second edition of the awards, and the second edition where I've been the chairman of the jury. I have a feeling they won't want me as chairman of the jury for the third year. And the reason is, see, award ceremonies first year is really when the award finds its feet. The aim is to encourage participation. The aim is to get as many entries as you can. And it is also to give as many awards as possible, which is what we did last year. Last year I think we recognized, we said we would recognize 40 under 40, and 40 is exactly what we recognized. But this was year two. And year two, in my belief, is when award ceremonies start to, you know, they need to start getting serious. Because at the end of the day, if you're rewarding someone, you have to make sure that they meet certain basic criteria. Because if you just want to make up the numbers, it's actually an insult to the people whom you're rewarding. Because the difference between the first candidate whom you select in terms of merit and the 40th person whom you select, again in terms of merit, cannot be so vast that these people can't even be in the same room. So I think it's important to ensure that certain basic criteria are met. And I think we found 19 people who met that criteria. So the thing to remember is the 19 winners, and I think you're here among the audience. You've really made it through extremely stringent criteria. I'm sorry we couldn't get 40. But as Ruhayal says, he did push. In fact, it would have been a little less than 19 if we'd taken a decision not to award people for the second year running. But that had not been notified to people who were sending in their nominations when the nominations were sought. So next year my recommendation is that we tell people that if you won the award previously, then you're no longer eligible. I mean, you win 40 under 40 once. I think it's good enough. And given the fact that journalism is becoming younger and younger, I think we should start doing 30 under 30, not 40 under 40. 40 is when people start thinking of retirement. So I'm going to keep my speech very short. And Ruhayal and I will have a little bit of a chat after this. And of course I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. I'd like to start off by thanking Exchange for Media. I've known Anurag for forever. I've known him for a really long time. More than 25 years I would think. Very difficult person to say no to. And he's got a good team. I mean, Ruhayal and Priyanka are among the most efficient people I know. So the award, I mean, the entire process was managed very well. And they managed to, every time when there is a jury meeting, I'm very, very happy for one simple reason. I discovered that I'm not the only person they've managed to bully into being on the jury. I mean, they get a bunch of my peers. I think a lot of other people have the same problem in saying no to Anurag. We live in a very, very interesting period of time. I don't think many of us realize it. We live in an age of peak information. It's something that started in the early 90s with the popularization of the internet. It came to India in 1994, 95, but since the early 90s. And when the internet first emerged, all of us thought that it would be a substitute. I mean, some of us who were a little more idealistic at that point in time. And idealism is good. We believe that the internet would replace perfect information. I mean, it would just make sure that everyone got information in real time and that the information would be accurate. We are discovering circa 2023 that we live in an age of perfect misinformation. There's just so much news out there that you don't realize what is authentic, what is not authentic. You don't realize the context because when speeches are clipped and played, you don't know what was said in the first three minutes. You just see what was said in 15 seconds and then it ends. And given attention spans, that's the only thing that registers. You're quite happy to take that little shot of dopamine and move on. And you don't realize what the real context is. And I think that's where many of you present in this room come in, because journalism has to present information in the right context. It obviously has to check information for facts, but it has to present information in the right context. We also live at a time when, you know, everyone gets obsessed with digital media and electronic media and online videos and things like this. And most organizations tend to classify their journalists as print journalists or multimedia journalists or TV journalists or digital journalists. And they ascribe certain characteristics to each one of the individuals. And the important thing to understand here is that every medium has its unique characteristics and unfortunately unique weaknesses. So TV for instance has the ability to really give you information in real time and it has the ability to actually show you what happens. But if you look at TV news, especially in India, it is obsessed with big stories. You no longer have range. So typically if you look at a news cycle in any Indian TV channel, they'll probably deal with six big stories and six is on a good day. On some days they just manage with two. And what does this do? It means that there are vast parts of the country that go uncovered. There are a large number of stories that go uncovered. There are a large number of topics that go uncovered. And you have the same talking heads invariably talking about the same things. Now the unfortunate reality is a lot of this is forced on the medium by the kind of business model that TV channels have trapped themselves into, especially news TV channels because we all look at, when we look at media and entertainment numbers across platforms, we all look at the size of the industry and get very, very excited. In truth, if you look at the entire space, news media accounts for 4% of the entire industry in terms of revenue. That is actually not a very huge number. Within that, English news media accounts for even less. So when you start slicing, you realize why is it exactly that TV channels end up obsessing over a fewer number of stories. Then you come to digital media. Every newsroom, including mine, has a digital operation. But if you look at what goes on most websites, I mean, 60% of the stories on any website are like the, you know, that little string that runs at the bottom of news TV channels. They're all crimes against humanity. There's just clickbait. There's content with no context. There are cat videos, photographs of actresses in little black dresses. There is not too much of substantive stuff that is there, simply because, again, the business model that most of these websites depend on is the inventory model. It's an advertising-based model. It's a clicks-based model. Never mind that with every passing day, you get lesser and lesser money for each click, because that is, again, the nature of the beast. So the truth is there is so much more to journalism, which you start seeing once you go into the niche areas of the internet where there are specialized websites. But the unfortunate thing about specialized websites is they can never scale up. They'll never be able to offer you the kind of information that you want across a range of topics. So it's important for big media, big news media to answer three questions. They have to answer questions about scale. They have to answer questions about profitability. And they have to answer questions about content. And I think the journey has to start from many places at once. While the people who promote these companies and the people who run these companies and the shareholders will have to ask questions, I think it's equally important that journalists start questioning why it is that they're doing what they're doing when they're working in a TV channel or a digital newsroom. And even within these newsrooms, it is possible to look for depth. It's possible to look for specialization. It's possible to look at data. It's possible to look at how you present a particular story. And that is what needs to happen. The unfortunate aspect is that most newsrooms end up being bubbles in themselves. So if you look at the kind of content and I don't want to name newsrooms, but if you, you know, fortunately, most of my, a lot of my responsibility has to do with the paper, although we run a newsroom which also does digital stuff. And I think the newspapers, all of them, whether it is the Hindu or the Indian Express or the Times of India or the Hindustan Times for which I work, we're all lucky because I think we've been immune from this to a great extent. But if you look at most digital or TV newsrooms, there are little bubbles in themselves. They have a certain narrative that they believe in and every news item that they give you is tailored with that own narrative. And that, to my mind, is not a healthy place for young journalists to give their best because to really give their best young journalists have to retain some of the, some of the motivation which makes people enter this profession, right? I mean, why does everyone get into journalism? People get into journalism? Sure. I mean, a lot of people get into journalism because they look at an anchor and say, oh, I also want to be like that anchor and everything else. But a lot of people also get into journalism because they want to make a difference. They want to serve society in a certain way. And I think we have to retain some of that purity, which is the reason we've made the selection process for this extremely difficult. I'll end with just three things that I want all of you to remember, both young and old, because I think even many of my peers have forgotten this. The most important thing for journalists at any level, you could be a trainee, you could be an editor-in-chief, is a moral compass. Most people have lost sight of their moral compass. They do not know where their moral north is. They do not know where their moral south is. They're quite happy to behave like a compass which is next to a magnet, moving wildly in many different directions. It's very important to understand where your moral compass is. Red lines. All newsrooms have to define red lines. Areas which are completely no-go as far as society is concerned. So if there is a hate crime, you have to call it out as a hate crime. You can't be euphemistic about it because a hate crime is a red line. What's happening in Manipur is a red line. And there is no way a good newsroom can not call out all these things that are happening. I find it very strange that many people just blank this out. Third, all journalists and anyone in this profession has to understand who they truly serve. You do not serve the government. You do not serve a political party. You do not serve your advertisers. The advertisers are happy to come to you because you serve a certain audience and for that audience you serve a certain purpose. And that purpose has to, you know, it's not something mundane. It is a higher purpose. It is the kind of purpose that I was speaking about when I said, you know, people enter journalism because they want to do something. So on that note, congratulations to the winners. Ruhil Olios.