Amar Ujala, the 70 year-old Hindi media brand, widely acknowledged as the cultural icon of the Hindi heartland, recently launched a first-of-its-kind thought leadership conclave - SAMWAD.
The event premiered on December 15 at the Taj Vivanta in Lucknow, the epicentre of the Hindi speaking world.
Bollywood stars, political stalwarts, artistes and thought leaders came together to hold the city of Lucknow in thrall for a whole day across eight riveting sessions, addressing the theme UP ke badalte ayam or The changing facets of Uttar Pradesh.
The finest of Lucknow: leaders, glitterati, students, intelligentsia packed into the Amar Ujala SAMWAD hall, hanging onto every word, readying their questions for the star-list of speakers and guests, which included the likes of Virender Sehwag, Akhilesh Yadav, Aamir Khan, Varun Gandhi, Jitin Prasada, Usha Jadhav, Raj Kummar Rao, Sheila Dixit, Shivpal Yadav, Manoj Tiwari and Kumar Vishwas.
The high-points of the event were: the launch of Amar Ujala TV by Aamir Khan, after an hour-long session with the anchor and the audiences, the live interactive session with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who was at his witty best, and the final session where politics shook hands with literature and Kumar Vishwas swept the audiences off their feet.
Amar Ujala SAMWAD explored and discovered ideas about the changes in society, people and politics of the people of the Gangetic belt of Uttar Pradesh. The day-long event had speakers presenting their views candidly, fielding audience questions with wit and humour, and the consensus that emerged was the fact that Uttar-Pradesh was going through unprecedented changes and still needed to tap its huge potential to make it more than just a politically powerful influence on the nation.
Amar Ujala that prides itself as people's newspaper involved its readers from across the world by engaging them through a #askamarujala digital and social campaign, giving opportunity to the local and the global Hindi audience to reach out to the panel of speakers. This campaign created quite a stir online, with more than 5000 audio and text questions and a huge bunch of video letters received from all over the world.
"SAMWAD is a part of Amar Ujala group's continuing efforts at bringing the best of the world to the Hindi space, and taking the vigour and energy of the Hindi people to the world. At a time when Uttar Pradesh is bracing itself for one of the most important state elections of all time, SAMWAD has provided an intellectual playground for unfurling of new plans, approaches and assessment of the path to the future, making the event a roaring success. It has also been a great occasion for us to present the global Hindi audiences with Amar Ujala TV, allowing readers to continue their engagement with us beyond text and through the day," said Mr. Probal Ghosal, Director, Amar Ujala Group.