Gandhinagar Samachar with the spirit of motivational journalism

Gandhinagar Samachar state capital’s daily newspaper today entered 30^th year. If one takes into account its initial four years as a weekly and bi weekly it has completed 33 years.

It is a great achievement considering the fact that it was started by a government employee quitting his job at the young age of 32 without any formal training in journalism.

Krishnakant Jha in his office

Krishnakant Jha the Managing Editor of the newspaper has a very interesting and inspiring story about his entrepreneurial venture. A mega cultural event based on Ramayana had hardly any coverage in the newspapers. On the other hand, he says, ordinary incidents like accidents and statements of allegations and accusations were prominently displayed by the media. This, he says, is in the root of the launch of Gandhinagar Samachar.

He is a commerce graduate.

Though he has no formal training in journalism, he was not a stranger to media. He was an avid reader and as leader of Sachivalaya employees union he knew what clicked in media pretty well. In a way, he was part of the media game.

Armed with this exposure to media and a deep urge for what he says motivational, Cultural social positive journalism, he started his journey into the uncharted path of media in 1982. Though Gandhinagar was still capital of Gujarat, it hardly had any social life at that time.

It was a city created to serve as capital of Gujarat and had no local population. Much of the staff used to come here from Ahmedabad only to return in the evening. One can imagine news flow and target readership of 80s.

Today almost every leading newspaper has Gandhinagar in its marketing plans. Obviously this change in the media scene has affected Krishnakant’s one man enterprise most. But like a successful entrepreneur, he is there with his broadsheet Gujarati newspaper Gandhinagar samachar.

He says that he is still committed to his idea of motivational, Cultural social positive journalism and gives plenty of space to such news. He feels that there is lot of space for such positive journalism.

He agrees that other news, the hard news, is integral part of a newspaper and cannot be ignored. It is only an issue of creating a healthy balance of news content.

He has learnt almost every aspect of print journalism right from gathering news to page layout and setting up a distribution network besides the most important aspect, the ad resource mobilization.

He is sharing his hands on experience of media with the students of journalism for the last five years. 64 year young Krishnakant Jha heads the media unit of the Sarva Kadi education group which runs several educational institutions in Gandhinagar.

His spirit of positive journalism is very much reflected in the annual issue of his newspaper. He has been bringing out an annual issue for the last five year. Like other publications, even for him it is an additional tool of resource mobilization. But he has woven it around his theme of positive journalism. Every year it is about a historical personality.

This year the the issue is dedicated to great saint Narsinh Mehta, the creator of Gandhi’s famous bhajan Vaishnav Jan to tene kahiye.

It’s a compilation of useful content on glossy art paper. I went through it. It’s a collector’s item worth preserving as a resource guide on Narsinh Mehta covering all aspects of the life of the great saint.

If I say that Krishnakant Jha is an epitome of motivational spirit it would not neither be inappropriate nor exaggeration. The most striking fact is that he is a handicapped and his mobility is through his wheel chair. But nothing has daunted him that is his moving motivational spirit.