The recent years have seen a lot of debate about press misusing its freedom and has been tarnishing images while twisting information and present it a favourable way. But it was not always like this; the press did not enjoy freedom until the early 1990s. There have been incidents where the state controlled press. In India, during the emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, the press was highly controlled and many voices were kerbed for speaking against the ruling party. On May 3, 1993, the United Nations General Assembly declared the day as the World Press Freedom Day. The aim was to create a consciousness of the importance of press freedom and to remind the governments to uphold the right to speech and expression. This became the most iconic moment for the press fraternity all across the world.

Apart from this, there are equally significant events graces May 3 on the world history.

1830 – 1st regular steam train passenger service started.
1837 – The University of Athens is established in Greece.
1913 – Raja Harishchandra the first full-length Indian feature film is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1937 – Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Gone with the Wind.
1942 – Nazis require Dutch Jews to wear a Jewish star.
1952 – 1st landing by an airplane at the geographic North Pole.
1960 – The Anne Frank House museum is thrown open in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
2001 – The United States lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.

Birthdays wishes to
Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian thinker and historian (1469); François Coty, French business tycoon, founded Coty, Inc. (1874); V. K. Krishna Menon, Indian lawyer, politician and Indian Minister of Defence (1896); Golda Meir, Ukrainian-Israeli educator and politician, and Israel’s 4th Prime Minister (1898); Bing Crosby, American entertainer (1903); Uma Bharti, Indian political leader and the 16th Chief Minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh (1959)

Text by Team THN

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