India, Nov. 21 -- When the United Nations General Assembly declared November 21 as World Television Day in 1996, it acknowledged a profound truth: no invention of the twentieth century altered human perception, culture, politics, and daily life as dramatically as television. Decades after its arrival, the debate still persists - is television an "idiot box" that numbs thought or a "magic box" that enlightens? Perhaps, as Marshall McLuhan suggested when he declared that "the medium is the message," television is both. It did not merely transmit information; its very presence reshaped social behaviour, cultural memory, and the architecture of public opinion.

McLuhan saw television as an extension of human senses - especially sight and soun...