Award winning Indian Composer Urges Media Responsibility 2010-1-15 0:38
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Academy award-winning Indian composer A.R. Rahman is in Australia to perform
a free outdoor concert in Sydney at the weekend.
Relations between Australia and India have been strained over attacks on
Indian students in the nation, most recently the fatal stabbing of an Indian
man in Melbourne early this month.
Tensions grew after an Indian newspaper then depicted an Australian police
officer in a Ku Klux Klan costume, after police had denied the attack was
racially motivated.
Rahman, best known outside India for his award winning soundtrack for the
"Slumdog Millionaire" film, urged the media to be responsible when reporting
incidents.
[A. R. Rahman, Indian Composer]:
"First of all, we need more responsible media. Media is a great tool but it
can also be misused and provoke people. Just one wrong news can kill a
thousand people. That happened in the past and we have to be extremely
careful and strict about the truth. I think... I was speaking to a lot of
people, they were saying that some of them are racial killings and some of
them are not, but everything is being painted in the same colour and we have
to be very careful about that."
Rahman hopes his concert, which is expected to draw a crowd of up to 75,000,
will build a bridge between the two countries.
[A. R. Rahman, Indian Composer]:
"And this concert is about, again, reaffirming the friendship and the
interest of both people, and I hope this concert brings that and I am sure
it will."
A recent report said attacks on Indian students in Australia last year would
cost the country's related businesses around $70 million, with predictions
Indian enrollments would fall by 21 percent this year.
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_asia/2010-01-15/928219984121.html
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- Regards
~ ~ A.R.Rajib ~ ~
