“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”
— George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
What is Empire Diaries?
It is a current affairs news platform created by Indian journalists Ratna and Nadim Siraj. It doesn’t cover news as routine, isolated events. Instead, it covers the hidden agenda behind the news that you see every day – the hidden agenda of corporations or business empires that try to centralise power and control us from faraway lands, directly and via proxies.
Why is Empire Diaries unique?
It is India’s only truly nationalistic news organisation that brings news, research, analyses, commentaries, and satirical pieces about how corporations or business elites seek to control India’s economy, profit from it, and affect the lives of the Indian public through their actions. Essentially, its research-based brand of journalism is novel and unique in India. Empire Diaries believes news is not what you are told, but what you are not. No one in India’s vast media space reports on what Empire Diaries covers.
How is its journalism presented?
Empire Diaries presents its public-interest journalism in the form of articles, videos, columns, interviews, commentaries, satirical content, and photo series. Its work is published in English, Bangla, and Hindi. You can follow the work on the Empire Diaries YouTube channel and website. The work can also be accessed on Rumble and Bitchute.
Why ‘Empire’ ‘Diaries’?
‘Empire’ represents modern-day corporations and business elites, mostly from abroad, who try to unofficially dictate and control our lives and dominate our economy. They do it directly as well as through fronts, or covers, or proxies, such as subsidiaries, political players, mainstream media, international organisations, etc. And ‘Diaries’ represents a journal or record of public-interest news coverage for future generations to make use of.
What is the purpose of Empire Diaries?
Empire Diaries, through a brand of journalism it calls Infactivism (Information Activisim), wants to awaken the Indian public about the need to peacefully and constructively free up India’s economy from foreign manipulation, and promote indigenous businesses for independent economic growth. It’s important to note that the news platform doesn’t intend to fan xenophobia against foreign countries, MNCS, and overseas cultures. Instead, it supports the exchange of ideas across borders. Its focus is to make the Indian public realise they should support domestic businesses and rely less on foreign corporations in order to help the country’s economy become self-reliant.
THE TEAM
Ratna, Founder Editor
Ratna is a journalist with about two decades of experience in reporting, anchoring and producing news shows in New Delhi, Kolkata and Muscat. As a TV reporter, she covered primetime news for many years. She worked at ABP News/ ABP Ananda, Times of India, and India Today Group. She has written for PARI, The Indian Express, The Times of India, Ananda Bazaar Patrika, and Asian Age. She co-authored a book on Greece: Into The Sunset: Rediscovering Greece. The Kolkata-born journalist is also a documentary filmmaker. Her films were screened at multiple festivals.
Nadim Siraj, Founder Editor
Nadim is an author, journalist, and columnist who spent his career collecting compelling stories across India, West Asia, Africa, and Europe. He worked at The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Statesman, and Muscat Daily. Based in Delhi-NCR, Kolkata-born Nadim wrote the 2019 book Secret Notes From Iran: Diary Of An Undercover Journalist and co-authored Into The Sunset: Rediscovering Greece with Ratna. As a journalist, he covered the economic collapse in Greece, poverty in Kenya, life in Egypt, post-Apartheid South Africa, and Nepalese life under Maoist control. He has also written invitational columns for CGTN.
How Empire Diaries was born
The idea behind Empire Diaries sprang to life when Ratna and Nadim, as mainstream media industry insiders, noticed a fundamental problem with the news people consume. There’s a fleet of popular media outlets, but none of them report critically on corporate imperialism, the root of all problems in economically unstable countries. Also, the popular press only covers daily news as unconnected events, lacking context. These two information gaps sparked the need for Empires Diaries – a newsy journal of the direct and indirect misdeeds of modern-day empires and related developments.
Who are these modern-day empires?
We can’t precisely identify them (we shouldn’t, because we don’t believe in defaming them). Overall, they’re a large, dispersed group of enormously powerful business families from the planet’s East to West, who own or influence the following tools of population control: banks, financial institutions, MNCs, intergovernmental bodies, industry cartels, central governments, state governments, political parties, military dictatorships, monarchs, religious bodies, strategic lobby groups, diplomatic groupings, terror outfits, revolutions, revolts, coups, popular movements, cultural trends, philanthropy, foundations, and influential individuals.
In simple words, they’re the owners of Big Business who run our lives. They own stakes in super-cartels such as Big Banks, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Oil, Big Food, Real Estate, Agri-Business, EdTech, etc.
Why the mainstream media doesn’t cover the hidden agenda
Legacy, popular, or mainstream media companies can only cover news as isolated, unconnected events. They are allowed to cover any subject or field under the sun. But they’re not allowed to go deeper to present the larger picture of how modern-day empires try to game our lives.
There’s a reason why they can’t expose modern-day empires and their the hidden agenda. They’re under a financial obligation not to do so. They get paid by corporations (in ad money), by corporate-backed governments (in ad money), and by corporate-supported interest groups (via funding networks) to cover and produce news.
Corporations give them ad money to advertise products and services. Governments give them ad money to advertise policies, feats, and developments. Interest groups, often from faraway lands, give them funding to control the narrative of the news and script agenda-driven cultural trends.
Simply put, corporates pay them through all three routes – directly, through governments, and via interest groups. Naturally, the popular news media are obligated not to cover the hidden agenda of empires.
Why Empire Diaries can cover the hidden agenda
What about Empire Diaries? It doesn’t take ad money from foreign corporates, and foreign and domestic governments. It is open to the idea of surviving on donations only from domestic funders and indigenous businesses who promise editorial freedom. As a result, Empire Diaries has zero obligation to powerful foreign players – or modern-day empires – who like to influence the news. ED can freely cover the deeds and misdeeds of corporate empires. And that was the whole idea of launching this current affairs platform!
If you’re reading this as a news consumer, you’re welcome to help us survive in whichever way you can. At Empire Diaries, we’re like the proverbial David (Infactivists), looking up at the towering Goliaths (modern-day empires and mainstream media). Or say, we’re like the tank man from the iconic Tiananmen moment. We’d love to be a statement to the powers-that-be. And to be heard by them, we need support from our well-wishers.
You can back our brand of against-the-tide journalism with monetary support, technical help, logistical backing, legal guidance, expert advice, etc. – whichever way you want to assist us, you’re welcome. You can say ‘Hi’ to us on our WhatsApp No. 9821045739, and we can connect.
You can also send across your contribution to our bank account:
Empire Diaries
HDFC Bank, India
Current AC: 50200078483948
IFSC Code: HDFC0000028
David, or say, the tank man, is waiting to hear from you!
Empire Diaries 