The Barak Festival Media Conclave, organised by the Knowledge Resource Centre Foundation (KRC Foundation) is set to be held in Silchar, Assam from 10th to 12th January 2025. The Conclave will feature five distinct activities namely Media Awards, Workshop, Welfare Fund, Talks and Outreach.

A press release from KRC Foundation informed that the festival’s first edition will present the ‘Barak Festival Life Time Achievement Award’ to a veteran journalist of the region acknowledging their long work in journalism, the ‘Barak Festival Young Journalist Award’ to young journalists in the region and the ‘Barak Festival Veteran Journalist Award’ to active journalists dedicating their life work to the media space. The attraction of the ‘Barak Festival Media Conclave’ will be to acknowledge the work of journalists across the northeast and nominations are sought from media houses for the ‘Barak Festival NE Media Award’. This award has two categories, Print and Electronic, it added.

The organiser also stated that the theme for the event, ‘One for All, All for One’, is chosen with the idea of standing beside the media fraternity in a time of need. The festival aims to generate a fund of more than one lakh rupees to be kept in the Media Welfare Fund, besides skilling up activities such as a Media Workshop for journalists and students will be conducted, it said.

It is expected the Media Talks envisioned during pre and post-festival will sensitise students and people on the role of media in society and during the Conclave the challenges and road ahead for the media fraternity will be deliberated. The Foundation also stated that white paper shall be created for the benefit of future reference of academics, government, media houses as well as policymakers.

Students, media professionals, media houses, and corporate houses can participate in the media conclave. Further, the KRC Foundation is inviting media students from across the country to participate in a ‘Media Contest’ in the category, Feature Writing, Podcast and Video Reporting.

In a statement, Biswadeep Gupta, the Managing Trustee of KRC Foundation said that the Media Conclave is an initiative where we want the movement of ‘KRC Foundation Media Welfare Group’ to be taken to the grass-root level of NE Region to create a support system for the media fraternity of the region.,