For Aakriti Dhawan, journalism was never meant to stay inside neat professional boundaries. Her career has crossed continents, formats and beats -- from Indian newsrooms like NDTV to international platforms including BBC, Deutsche Welle and TRT World. Today, based in the UK, she works as an international journalist while hosting her own podcast, Beyond Borders, a space dedicated to conversations that often fall outside conventional media narratives. Yet the path into journalism wasn’t a meticulously planned one. “I was doing history,” Aakriti recalled during our conversation. “My mom is a historian as well, so I think it runs in our blood. But while doing that, I realised I was never inclined towards academia.” Like many journalists, her entry into media began almost accidentally. A writing opportunity at ScoopWhoop during her college years sparked the first realisation that storytelling might be more than just an interest. “I realised that wr

Upendra Rai, CMD and Editor-in-Chief of Bharat Express, announced plans to restart the channels of Sahara News Network and expand Rashtriya Sahara at the broadcaster’s third anniversary conclave held on March 9. He described the move as a major expansion for the network. According to Best Media Info , Rai said all Sahara news assets would be revived, with Rashtriya Sahara likely to return within a month. The combined network is expected to operate 13 news channel licences. As per Sahara’s media page, Sahara Samay is a 24x7 national Hindi news channel, while Aalami Sahara is a 24x7 Urdu news channel, along with five regional Hindi news channels. Launched on February 1, 2023, Bharat Express debuted in the presence of Uday Shankar. Rai also outlined plans to publish the newspaper from 20 cities initially, expanding to 30 later, and to strengthen its digital platform with an AI-led news grid. However, the announcement did not specify ownership, financing, or operational det

Last week, the Supreme Court of India had agreed to examine what constitutes 'personal data' under the recently notified Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, which has been accused of using data privacy to block the citizen's legitimate right to information besides various other infringements on media freedom. A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said the need to define ‘public data’ and ‘personal data’ has arisen following the implementation of the DPDP Actand its corresponding Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025. The court issued formal notice to the Union government on a petition filed by The Reporters' Collective, Software Freedom Law Center among others. "We believe, the government has surreptitiously and wrongfully shrunk our rights as citizen to access information for public purpose and to hold it and other powerful people accountable to citizens through the Digital Personal Data Prote

Happy faces as Vijayawada schools let students go home early, switch to half-day sessions to beat the heat – picture by K.V.S Giri – The Hindu Freedom of Religion Bill 2026 passed in Maharashtra The Maharashtra Assembly has passed the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill 2026, with the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Sena supporting the bill, breaking ranks with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance. The bill regulates religious conversion in the state. The Congress and the Samajwadi Party have opposed the bill, while the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLAs have taken a mixed stand on it. The Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill 2026 says that any religious conversion made through ‘allurement, coercion, deceit, force, misrepresentation, threat, undue influence or fraudulent means’ would be null and void. It makes any such offence cognizable and non-bailable and prescribes up to 7 years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh for such unlawful conversion, writes Krishna Ku

The Karnataka Union of Working Journalists has invited applications for membership through its district units. In a statement, the union said working journalists can apply for membership by submitting their applications along with the required supporting documents through the respective taluk units. The applications will then be forwarded by the district units for further consideration. The union clarified that the decisions taken by the district units and the state body regarding membership will be final.

Press Information Bureau Hyderabad will organise “Vartalap – media workshop for journalists” in Sangareddy on March 17 at 10 am at the Zilla Parishad Meeting Hall. P Pravinya, Collector of Sangareddy district, will attend as the chief guest. The workshop will include sessions on gender based violence, key Central government schemes for women and the use of artificial intelligence in journalism. Sessions will be led by journalist Sajaya Kakarla and fact check trainer Satya Priya BN. Journalists from the district have been invited to participate in the programme.  

There is more to come from Jackson Ryan’s investigation into Australian gaming title GamesHub and its new owners, Maltese-owned Clickout Media.  Ryan published an eight-month investigation earlier this month on Aftermath titled, “The Secretive Company Filling Video Game Sites With Gambling And AI.” The item detailed the editorial practices employed by Clickout Media since it took over the gaming title. That included the transition from freelance journalists to AI-generated journalists for filing reports and reviews on gaming topics.  “When we saw GamesHub sold off in May last year, it was quite unusual that there was no description about who had bought the site,” Ryan told Influencing.   “I know a couple of the GamesHub authors, and I reached out to them. They said they couldn’t speak about this and that it was something to ask the higher-ups, and I did so, and they didn't tell me anything, and that is very strange.” “Why would someone buy a media outlet an