Bytes of learning

Sometime last week there was an interesting seminar on media held at New Delhi's India Habitat Centre. Inaugurated by Jaipal Reddy, minister, information & broadcasting "" who attended the seminar despite a fractured foot "" it focused two issues: Is Indian media aggressive enough, and is television corrupting popular taste?

Present at the seminar were experts from the print and electronic media such as Rajdeep Sardesai,editor-in-chief, IBN, Tarun Tejpal, CEO, Tehelka, Vinod Mehta, chief editor Outlook, Suhel Seth of Equus, Bhavana Somaya, editor, Screen, besides others like Tripurari Sharan, director, FTII.

The seminar, organised by BAG Films, was essentially a precursor to announce the grand plans of Anurradha Prasad's 12-year-old company. For starters, it has invested nearly Rs 12 crore for the launch of an institute on media and entertainment studies.

The International School of Media and Entertainment Studies (ISOMES, as it is called) will be housed near Noida's NRI City and will start batches by mid-2006.

Rajiv Mishra, director, ISOMES, is confident that the institute will "emerge as not just India's but South Asia's leading media institute in terms of infrastructure, technical facilities, academic design, teaching methodology and faculty". What's more, ISOMES has tied up with the Missouri School of Journalism in USA that will lend its expertise for the institute.

First things first. Why do we need another institute? As those of us who've studied journalism from any institute know, theoretical knowledge is far different from what is learnt in practical terms. Not quite, thinks Roger Gafke, professor, Missouri School of Journalism, who feels ISOMES will succeed in blending both theoretical and practical knowledge.

Mishra asserts, "The institute has a range of courses and is not relegated to journalism. With technology changing rapidly, we need to ensure that our students are adept with the all the facets of media management."

While the institute will have a wide range of courses including short-term ones in film and television writing, its star attraction will be the four-year degree course in integrated media management. "The focus," says Gafke, "will be to blend practical aspects of the job with theoretical knowledge."

It took nearly two years for the Missouri School of Journalism to arrive at a structured course module for ISOMES. While classes have already become operational on the official premises of BAG Films, the institute will finally move to Greater Noida where nearly 25,000 sq mt of space has been acquired by the company.

India's first multi-cam digital studio will house, according to Mishra, state-of-the-art equipment that has been procured from the US, Japan, Korea and Britain.

"We've invested nearly Rs 4 crore for starters for the equipment," he confirms. Besides auditoria, in-house studios and other facilities, the institute will also have a hostel for students. "Though we'll begin our hostel by next year, by 2010 we'll be able to accommodate a total of 600 students on the premises," admits Mishra.

The institute will also start its exchange programme by next year wherein a select number of students from ISOMES will be sent to the Missouri School of Journalism. It'll cost anywhere between Rs 4-6 lakh to study the four-year degree course at ISOMES and the institute has tied up with Central Bank of India for easy educational loan facilities for its students.

"We're going to be pioneers in media education for not just India but also the whole of South-east Asia," says Mishra.

We, of course will have to wait and watch.