Focus more on young readers, India Vice President to Urdu media

Hyderabad, India, Dec 31 (PTI) Noting that the number of speakers of Urdu language was on decline, India's Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari said the Urdu media should ensure that it did not overlook the young readers. Ansari was addressing the World Urdu Editors' Conference which started in this southern Indian city on Friday. "Despite the overall increase in population, the percentage of Urdu speakers to total population has registered a noticeable decline. Thus the younger age group does get excluded in some parts of the country," he said. "One implication is the effort by the newspapers to focus on the older age-groups. The development stories, of particular interest to the youth, tend to be downplayed; by the same logic, older and familiar grievances remain disproportionately in focus. "Responsible publications can perhaps do more to mould taste and cajole the readership in the direction of contemporary issues," Ansari said. The other problems of Urdu media related to resources, advertisements, news gathering methodology and adaptation of new technology, he said. "Each of these is related to size and demands of readership. A good newspaper, however, should cater both to public demand and to the need to shape this demand. Only then it would be in a position of opinion-maker," he said. Governor E S L Narasimhan of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh said the media should not fall prey to commercial considerations. Zahid Ali Khan, Editor of Hyderabad-based Urdu daily 'Siasat' which has organised the conference, called for the formation of a consortium of Urdu media to take up relevant issues. The two-day conference, being attended by editors of Urdu newspapers from India, Pakistan and some other countries, is discussing the problems faced by Urdu newspapers and Urdu journalists. An estimated 60 million people speak the Urdu language in India. It is also the official language of Pakistan in addition to being spoken in some other countries as a minority language. PTI Caption for pic: India's Vice President Hamid Ansari (left) shaking hands with a Pakistani delegate at the World Urdu Editors’ Conference in Hyderabad on Friday. PTI Photo