In this first episode of “London Vārta: Freedom of Speech”,  Utkarsh Amitabh, CEO of Network Capital, is in conversation with broadcaster Pervaiz Alam. Amitabh has recently authored a book: Passion Economy And The Side Hustle, published by Penguin. 
He is also the Chief Marketing Officer of 5ire.org, a blockchain unicorn valued at $1.5 Billion. 
Utkarsh Amitabh is a writer at Harvard Business Review, Chevening Fellow at University of Oxford and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper who represented the community at the Annual Meeting in Davos.
An engineer by training, Utkarsh read philosophy at Pembroke College, University of Oxford and earned his MBA from INSEAD Business School (France) where he was recognised as the Andy Burgess Scholar for Social Entrepreneurship. 
Utkarsh worked at Microsoft for 7 years across US, Europe and India, leading business development for big bet projects. He is a TED speaker, Raisina Fellow, and the recipient of the INK Fellowship. 
He is also a trained actor and played “Major Metcalf” in one of the world's longest running plays. He loves to travel and has been to more than 80 countries.
London Vārta: Freedom of Speech 
Meet some of the most prominent journalists and broadcasters from India, discussing their journey from ‘Legacy Media’ to Social Media via Youtube in a series of podcasts, London Vārta: Freedom of Speech, produced by Cine Ink, a hub of podcasts based in London.  

Background: A report by the Reuters news agency in April, 2024, headlined the phenomenon “Critics of India's Modi migrate online as mainstream media stays deferential.”

With more than 800 million people online, India is the country with the largest YouTube audience, 462 million, in the world. With more than 400 million WhatsApp users, the country is seeing a record number of exchange of good, bad and ugly internet links.

A report “The 2024 Indian Elections: The Strategic Use of Journalism, Social Media, and Internet Governance in a Modi-centric Election” by Ralph Schroeder, Neeraj Shetye and Maknoon Wani, published in April 2024, for the Oxford Internet Institute, the University of Oxford, says: The Worrying State of Indian Journalism - India’s ranking in the  World Press Freedom Index has consistently deteriorated over the past few years, touching a record low of 161 out of 180 countries in 2023, falling 11 positions compared to 2022. One of the main issues leading to the downgrade is the concentrated ownership of Indian media  where businesses such as Reliance Industries, which is close to the Prime Minister, has been able to buy more than 70 media outlets in the country. This has significantly affected Indian journalism: As Antara Dev Sen observes, “An independent journalist is the bedrock of responsible media as opposed to embedded journalists, enlisted by dominant political, ideological or business interests”. 

The report adds: Disinformation on social media played an important, though not decisive, role in the previous two elections. 2014 is sometimes dubbed the ‘Twitter election’ and 2019 the ‘WhatsApp’ election. 2024, with YouTube among the main outlets that Indians use for news may come to be known as the ‘YouTube election’.