Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.                 

UNI reports that  Uttar Pradesh's Lalitpur district authorities have asked journalists to furnish details of their WhatsApp groups. They have been told to register their WhatsApp groups with the state's information department,  headed by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath himself. The order says that those who fail to comply would face legal action under the IT Act.                                      

Former diplomat KC Singh tweeted on Aug 28 that he was "an independent voice silenced" after a change of editors at The Tribune. "Instead of freedom to write on fixed days on subjects I chose they now invite pieces." He added, "Welcome to Modi’s New India!" That got hundreds of retweets and likes.  The paper responded: "Dear Mr Singh, deeply disturbing and disappointing because no grain of truth in your tweet. You have written 12 articles after change of guard which, in terms of periodicity, is more than what you used to do earlier." The change of guard was in May. Singh's response to that was to say that his last piece (on Vajpayee) had been cut by 300 words. Oh dear.                                  

WhatsApp is rolling out radio campaigns on AIR across 46 radio stations in Hindi speaking states, reports TOI, to advise users to check the veracity of information received by WhatsApp before forwarding it. Similar campaigns in other regional languages will follow. The Facebook-owned company is under severe pressure from GOI to check the circulation of fake news.                         

Some seven weeks before today's arrest of lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj and other activists, allegations made in a programme on Republic TV aired defamatory and unattributed charges against her calling her Comrade Sudha, showing a letter which she had purportedly sent. Anchors on the channel called her and others 'urban naxals' and alleged links between Maoists and Kashmiri militants and a plot to kill the PM. Bhardwaj had issued a statement right away refuting all allegations and saying that she found it curious "that a document purporting to contain evidence of such serious crimes should first surface in the studio of Arnab Goswami.” Interviews with her refuting the charges are here and here.                            

In April 1979 Kuldip Nayar was among those who founded the The Media Foundation which runs the Hoot, along with BG Verghese, Romesh Thapar, NS Jagannathan, and L C Jain, all stalwarts of that era. Arun Shourie, S Mulgaonkar, Ajit Bhattacharya and the Jurist LM Singhvi were also members of this initial group. Just short of forty years later Nayar's passing away on August 22 coincides with the archiving of The Hoot, which stood for the values he held dear: press freedom and free speech.             

The Tribune at Chandigarh has seen exits  and transfers in recent weeks but now there is a counter narrative emerging which apprehensive staffers may not be prepared to believe. Sources  say the rumour that more easing out of contract staff is on the cards is simply not true, and that  that the exits were performance appraisal linked, a process that is now over. Also that performance, not cost cutting was the impetus for recent departures, because promotions in similar numbers were also given.