IT IS one of the inspirational legends of Indian journalism that James Hickey, founder and editor of the Bengal Gazette — this country’s first newspaper, with its first edition going back to January 1780 — was a fearless seeker of the truth, taken to court and imprisoned by Warren Hastings, then governor-general. Reality is a little different. Hickey’s paper was often a gossipy, yellow rag. It thought nothing of publishing scurrilous...

-One World South Asia The recent report on paid news by Press Council of India recommends that representation of the People Act, 1951, should be amended to make the practice of paid news a punishable electoral malpractice. The Report defines paid news as Any news or analysis appearing in any media (Print & Electronic) for a price in cash or kind as consideration. The Report records that “Sections of the media in India...

The popular outrage over the official definition of poverty at abysmally low levels of daily income, of Rs 26 in rural areas and Rs 32 in urban areas, assumes the state will deny basic services to a household whose income is above the figure. This is totally erroneous. There is no mechanism in the hands of the government to ascertain income or expenditure to identify the 'poor' on the ground. The...

-IANS   Soni Sori, the tribal teacher who was held in Delhi last week on charges of being a Maoist conduit and is hospitalised here with head and back injuries, Wednesday said Chhattisgarh Police were treating her like a criminal. "They (police) are treating me like a hardcore criminal. They had put a chain on my legs... I oppose such moves by police," Sori told some mediamen at a government hospital here...

-The Times of India   The government's decision to recast policy guidelines for TV Channels, which in effect has held out the threat of canceling the licence of news channels if they are guilty of five "violations", has created an outrage among broadcasters and civil rights activists who have described it as a knee jerk reaction and demanded an immediate withdrawal of the order. Broadcasters feel that blocking a news channel can't depend...