-Livemint.com While I&B Minister Smriti Irani said that both these bodies were not “regulated/operated” by the government, her Ministry’s statement was the one that defined the punishment and left both the definition of fake news and the nature of the complaint open-ended. In an unprecedented move in an election year, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has amended guidelines for journalists’ accreditation stating that if a journalist is found to have “created and/or...

-TheWire.in When a government and ruling party that themselves peddle disinformation now say they want to fight fake news, it is time for the media to batten down the hatches and prepare for the worst. In the name of fighting fake news, the Narendra Modi government is laying a minefield for journalists and media houses that threatens what remains of the Free Press in India. On Monday, the information and broadcasting ministry spelt...

-The Indian Express The video of the sting operations purportedly showed that representatives of many of these media companies were willing to accept cash, and not raise a bill for that amount. Cobrapost has released a series of sting operations and claimed that senior employees of 17 media outlets in the country had agreed to push polarising stories for money when they were approached by an undercover journalist. The video of the...

-The Indian Express The government should not succumb to pressures for removal of trait fee on a technology that has made India the world’s No. 1 cotton producer. During the last cotton season, there were reports of the pink bollworm (PBW) not being effectively controlled, especially in some 700 villages of Maharashtra where the infestation of this insect pest was stated to be high. However, at a review meeting conducted by the...

-PTI The index uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. India's score in the latest ranking, however, remained unchanged at 40. In 2015, the score was 38. India has been ranked 81st in the global corruption perception index for 2017, released by Transparency International, which named the country among the “worst offenders” in terms of graft and press freedom in the Asia...