JEDDAH – A new television channel will formally be launched on Feb. 10 from Calicut in the southern Indian state of Kerala. MediaOne, with a capital of more than $25 million (1.3 billion Indian rupees), aims to be a channel that promotes an alternative media culture based on moral and human values, according to Sheikh Muhammad Karakkunnu, an Islamic scholar and vice president of Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited, the company that is floating the channel. “MediaOne, which will transmit both entertainment and news-based programs in Malayalam language, will basically be a channel for families. The channel will cater not only to Muslims but to non-Muslims as well,” said Karakkunnu, who was in Jeddah to promote the channel. Funds are being raised mainly from Indian businessmen and expatriate workers living in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Karakkunnu, who is also vice president of the Kerala unit of Indian Jamaat-e-Islami, said the channel is the latest initiative launched by Jamaat-e-Islami to spread a value-based media culture in the state. The group is venturing into visual media after the successful experiment by a Jamaat-managed trust to launch a daily newspaper a quarter of a century ago. “The Madhyamam is now the third largest circulated daily newspaper in Kerala and the number one Malayalam daily read by Keralites living abroad, especially in the Gulf states,” he said. A well-known writer and orator, Karakkunnu previously served as director of the Islamic Publishing House (IPH), the publication wing of Jamaat-e-Islami in Kerala. The IPH, founded in 1945, has published more than 600 titles on various aspects of Islam. “The Islamic Encyclopedia, being published by IPH, is contributing substantially to an intellectual revolution spearheaded by Jamaat-e-Islami in Kerala. So far, 10 volumes of the encyclopedia have been published,” said Karakkunnu, who himself has authored more than 70 books in Malayalam. The Jamaat leader congratulated Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for his historic initiative for interfaith dialogue and outstanding contributions toward promoting world peace and peaceful coexistence of followers of various religions. Karakkunnu has held interfaith dialogue forums and roundtable discussions with the objective of spreading the true nature of Islam as a religion of peace, tolerance and mercy to mankind. “We conducted dialogue forums in various parts of Kerala in which many religious leaders, scholars and intellectuals from the majority Hindu community as well as Christian minority participated. These conferences were successful in promoting communal amity as well as in removing misunderstandings about Islam and other religions,” he said.
