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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Bring electronic media under Press Council: Katju

Bring electronic media under Press Council: Katju

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published Published on Oct 31, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 31, 2011
-The Hindu
 
Writes to Manmohan Singh seeking more teeth to council

Press Council Chairman Markandey Katju has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggesting that the electronic media be brought under its purview. He has also sought “more teeth” to the council.

“I have written to the PM that the electronic media should be brought under the Press Council and it should be called Media Council and we should be given more teeth. Those teeth would be used in extreme situations,” Justice Katju told Karan Thapar on the CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate programme.

The former Supreme Court judge said that the Prime Minister had replied to his letter stating that “they are considering it.”

Justice Katju said he had also met Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and that she had told him probably there would be a “consensus.”

When Mr. Thapar asked Justice Katju whether he was seeking more teeth for the Press Council, he said: “I want powers to stop government advertisement. I want to suspend the licence of that media for a certain period if it behaves in a very obnoxious manner, impose fines.” However, he said that all these measures would be used only in extreme situations.

Asked whether these measures would not threaten the freedom of the media, he said, “Everybody is accountable in a democracy. No freedom is absolute. Every freedom is subject to reasonable restrictions. I am accountable, you are accountable, and we are accountable to the people.”

Justice Katju said he thought TV debates were “frivolous” and there was no discipline among panellists. “It is not a shouting contest,” he told Mr. Thapar.

“There must be some fear in the media,” he said, quoting Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas that bin bhay hot na preet .

Justice Katju said, “I have a poor opinion of the media” and added that “they should be working for the interest of the people. They are not working for the interest of the people and sometime they are positively working in an anti-people manner. It often diverts the attention of the people from the real problems which are basically economic.

“Eighty per cent of people are living in horrible poverty, unemployment, facing price rise, health care (problems). You (media) divert the attention from those problems and instead you project film stars and fashion parades as if they are the problems of the people,” he said.

“Cricket is an opium of the masses. Roman emperors used to say if you cannot give the people bread give them circuses. In India send them to cricket if you cannot give the people bread.”

The Council Chairman said, “Whenever bomb blasts take place in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, within a few hours almost every channel starts showing an e-mail has come or an sms has come that Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility or Jaish-e-Mohammed or Harkat-ul-Ansar or some Muslim name,” he said. “You see e-mail or sms...any mischievous person can send but by showing it on TV channels you are in a subtle way conveying the message that all Muslims are terrorists and bomb throwers and you are demonising the Muslims...99 per cent of people of all communities are good people,” Justice Katju said. “I think it is a deliberate action of the media to divide the people on religious lines and that is totally against the national interest,” he said.

Justice Katju said India was moving “from a feudal agricultural society to a modern industrial society. This is a very painful ... period in history. When Europe was going through this period, media played a great role.” — PTI

The Hindu, 31 October, 2011, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2583709.ece


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