Sharada Balasubramaniam didn’t walk into journalism through a media school or newsroom placement. She stepped into it from the ground, driven by instinct, shaped by urgency.  Back in 2003 or 2004, journalism wasn’t a degree you collected. It was something you did. And that’s exactly what she began doing after a brief stint at Greenpeace, where she first saw how climate issues were ignored in mainstream media. That early exposure would shape her life’s work: telling stories that connect people to the ecological emergencies unfolding around them. Her first newsroom job was at The Asian Age in Mumbai, not as a reporter but as a sub-editor on the business desk. It wasn’t the dream beat. But it gave her something just as valuable, an understanding of how newsrooms work. Sharada tells young journalists to start here: “Find your niche, yes, but learn the craft first. Understand how the machine runs before you try to change its course.” It would be years before she report

Behind the news bulletins, headlines, and breaking alerts, a quieter story is playing out, one of journalist mothers balancing deadlines and diapers, live reports and lullabies. While the profession demands speed, stamina and stoicism, it rarely pauses to consider what it means for those producing the news while carrying new life, literally and emotionally. "Motherhood didn’t dull my passion" Laasya Shekhar, an independent journalist, laid it bare. During her first trimester at South First, she struggled with relentless nausea and fatigue. There were no naps, no concessions, and certainly no slowing down. “In my sixth month, I was on the ground covering the 2023 Chennai floods,” she said. “Soon after, I was fired for ‘underperformance’, despite informing the organisation about my pregnancy.” After childbirth, Laasya pushed through sleepless nights and two-hour feeding cycles while continuing to write stories as an independent reporter. The passion didn’t f

Benjamin Veress hopes to explore his passions much more after departing as Native Content Writer at Pedestrian TV earlier this month.  However, after just one week off, Veress is already back at the keyboard, joining Blunt Magazine as a freelance news writer last Thursday.  Veress told Influencing, “I've been in the same role for under three years and decided it was time to move on…After so much change and being in the native content role for so long, I decided I want to take a step back, pursue other opportunities, and focus more on my passions for writing, too. “I stream on the side, I do content creation on the side, and I also love doing that.” Veress added the decision to change roles was “a culmination of things” and that he hopes to focus on “music, gaming, and tech news” going forward. The opportunity to write for Blunt Magazine came from an informal discussion with his former Pedestrian colleague and now editor of Blunt Magazine, Emily Spindler.  “I

The Treasurer might not be promising a new tax—but the sound of economic reform drums is growing louder. The AFR’s Ronald Mizen reports that the Commonwealth Bank has thrown a red flag into Jim Chalmers’ roundtable with a blunt submission: forget about corporate tax cuts, target wealth instead, and review the GST.   A “frank submission” indeed. Most notably, the CBA directly contradicts the Business Council of Australia—of which it's a member—by arguing company tax cuts should not be the priority. That chorus gets louder in The Australian, where Matthew Cranston and Greg Brown write that Chalmers is now “open” to new taxes and more cuts to spending. Their story follows the accidental release of Treasury advice warning that without these changes, the budget isn’t sustainable.  And then there’s Samantha Maiden’s report in The Daily Telegraph, which goes full-facepalm: secret Treasury advice urging the government to raise taxes was accidentally sent to a jo

Following the success of LegaXy, a sports and entertainment venture, the founding team has expanded into the digital content arena with the launch of Bajarbattu Media.   This next-generation media company is focused on creating original, engaging content across a variety of genres.  Bajarbattu Media is positioned as a modern infotainment hub, combining impactful storytelling with innovative digital formats to captivate, inform, and entertain Indian audiences.

Image source: India Today, Indian Express and The Core; Edited by Dinesh Raj M   The Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association (ICPA) has slammed the “reckless and unfounded insinuation of pilot suicide” that has been doing the rounds since the report was made public on Saturday. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s (AAIB) report stated that both fuel switches on the Boeing 787 transitioned from “run” to “cut-off” three seconds after it took off from the runway, cutting off fuel supply to the engines. Soon after the report’s release, pilots and aviation experts, in interviews and posts on social media, claimed one of the pilots had knowingly cut off the fuel supply switch. Hot off the Press The Airline Pilots’ Association of India has also stated that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s (AAIB) preliminary report on the Air India 171 crash led to the promoting of a “presumption of pilot guilt” even before the probe was complete, reported

By all accounts, it should have been a routine political event. Speeches, applause, dinner. But what unfolded at Vaiko’s Sattur meeting on July 9 was a full-on crash course in how not to treat journalists and how quickly insecurity can spiral into violence. According to Tamil Janam TV reporter Jayaram, who was on the ground, the evening took a turn after Durai Vaiko (Vaiko’s son and rising political face) delivered his speech and left for his 8 PM flight. Naturally, most of the crowd followed suit. Some left, others rushed for selfies. What remained was a hall of scattered chairs and a visibly rattled Vaiko Sr., who lashed out on the mic to get people to sit back down. From that point, things got uncomfortable and then ugly. Journalists, including those from Tamil Janam TV, Polimer TV, News7 Tamil and Thanthi TV, continued covering the event. Some shot footage of empty chairs, a scene any honest reporter would capture. But instead of taking the optics in stride or issuing a