Holding up half the sky

I was 20 when I moved from a small town in north India to Delhi. This opened up a completely new world for me. I started writing freelance for a newspaper on art and culture and a couple of months later landed in a regular job with them. Working in a newspaper was a wonderful experience. I have worked in various other jobs since but nothing matches the buzz of the newsroom. The environment was intellectually stimulating, people were interesting, work was hectic, exciting and fun. One got to meet some very interesting and inspiring people, and of course the ‘perks’ of meeting celebs, eating at fancy places, going for junkets were hard to resist. A couple of years later the television boom came and I took the plunge, only to realise it's not my chosen medium.

I moved to the development sector as a writer, helping the agency in advocacy with media. My print and television experience came in handy. This was good, as I learnt a lot about media as an industry – from the district-level press to global footprints of international media – and also about a range of development concerns. Much of my work was on AIDS as a rights issue, so I learnt about violence against women, sexual minorities, stigma, women in sex work. This got me to travel across the country to vulnerable and affected communities, and also be part of global conferences and forums. This helped me become a global citizen.

About 20 years later, I am now back in small town India where I work in the polio endemic districts of western Uttar Pradesh with district-level media. It has been a fascinating journey. Life has a pattern, one thing leads to another. I think the beauty and power of new media is the micro-macro picture. We are interested in issues on the ground – small, poor communities and how they address their concerns – be it health, livelihood, nutrition, sanitation, clean drinking water. We also realise that what happens in one part of the world impacts the rest of the planet as well. The earth is like one body, we are all inter-connected. As the world changes rapidly thanks to the internet and new media, what an awesome opportunity it presents before us to get the world’s people interested in the world's biggest problems and help solve them together.

By giving women a voice we ensure fair representation, the right and power to speak up and be heard. New media and technology then, presents us an invaluable tool with infinite potential waiting to be explored.