UP Govt’s WhatsApp diktat to journos
IN Media Watch Briefs | 2018-09-05
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..
DAVP’s advertisement allocation politics –II
IN Special Reports | 2018-08-23
Govt ad allocations increase in the year preceding an election, there is a good year ahead for the regional press.
If the PM is confident why is the PMO so paranoid?
IN Media Freedom | 2018-08-15
Of late all segments of media have reported evidence of Big Brother watchfulness and attempts to control the narrative on government performance.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS|08/07/2018
Guwahatiplus.com reports that the Assam government has been taking good care of journalists in the state. It is implementing a journalist insurance scheme, conducts press tours for journalists to BJP ruled states, and has announced a media fellowship and a Republic Day journalism award. There is a journalist family benefit fund..
DAVP’s advertisement allocation politics –II
IN Special Reports | 2018-08-23
Govt ad allocations increase in the year preceding an election, there is a good year ahead for the regional press.
DAVP’s ad politics--Express loses, Pioneer gains
BY SAI VINOD|IN SPECIAL REPORTS|04/07/2018
NDA government cuts ads to the Indian Express second year running, and leading Hindi newspapers get more by way of advertising than leading English ones.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |16/04/2018
The Print reports that I and B minister Smriti Irani used a new programme series on All India Radio to launch an attack on the Opposition for the washed out session of Parliament. With the 2019 polls in view, this programme called ‘Jan Seva Samvad’ which will be broadcast over the entire AIR network..
Online regulation: another hasty move?
BY A HOOT COMMENT| IN LAW AND POLICY |06/04/2018
PM Modi and Smriti Irani need to tread wisely if their legacy is not to be a hasty one which does more damage than good. The media policy legacy of an earlier BJP government was a positive one.
PMO orders withdrawal of fake news circular
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |03/04/2018
What the I and B ministry proposes the PMO disposes. After the ministry decided in its wisdom to amend the guidelines for accreditation to penalise those journalists who peddle fake news, there was an uproar and press bodies got busy drafting statements. The PMO moved to quickly withdraw the circular and said that the..
So Smriti Irani wants to regulate online news?
BY PADMAJA SHAW| IN LAW AND POLICY |22/03/2018
First, though, she needs to curb trolling and the spread of poison on social media, including by BJP supporters.
Regulating online news content
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |18/03/2018
Online media has not been subjected to licensing and regulation so far but I & B minister Smriti Irani suggested at CNN News 18's Rising India Summit on March 16-17 that this may be changing. When it comes to content on TV, radio or newspapers there is a code of..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |10/02/2018
There's a sharp dip in the number of television channels violating the programme and advertising codes since 2014, informed Minister for Information and Broadcasting Smriti Irani in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha. From 17 private television channels that violated the code in 2014 and 2015 and 16..
Media underplays the pruned outlays
BY SEVANTI NINAN| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |03/02/2018
It was left to the politicians, not journalists to look closer at the actual numbers. And even when they did the Modicare math, they did not play it up.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS|11/04/2017
That many publications of varying periodicity exist largely to skim off advertising from DAVP is well known. What was not known was just how many such enterprising publishers there are all over the country. Now DAVP has published a list of 804 publications which are being suspended for not submitting..
BY PADMAJA SHAW| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |12/12/2016
The government of Andhra Pradesh is set to outsource its PR work to journalists for upto Rs 51,000 a month.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |02/12/2016
The BJP is transparent about its media dislikes. In a programme "Ground Zero- Cash crunch" that Rajdeep Sardesai was doing on India Today on December 1, pay day, he asked Smriti Irani on the steps of Parliament for her reaction. Her reply was "Rajdeep the whole world knows that I..
Mann Ki Baat: Modi’s pet platform
BY SHUMA RAHA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |01/12/2016
An ingenious and influential communication tool, Mann Ki Baat continues to be a great favourite of Narendra Modi’s. In two years, 446 million Indians have heard him chat to them.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |05/11/2016
The I and B Ministry's 24 hour ban on NDTV India gave anchor Ravish Kumar the trigger for a long satirical take-off on Friday night on a voiceless democracy, his most free-wheeling, self-indulgent and extended special show yet, featuring two mime artists. It was titled "if we can't ask questions what can..
Media legacies, the Emergency and beyond
BY sevanti ninan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |21/06/2015
This sort of centralized bullying is hard to comprehend today because there is so much more media.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |26/01/2016
This years Padma awards had its share of journalists in every category. The Padma Vibhushan was conferred upon Ramoji Rao, the founder of the Eenadu Group. Barjinder Singh Hamdard, the managing editor of the Punjabi newspaper Daily Ajit, and columnist and TV commentator Ashok Malik were conferred the Padma Bhushan..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |15/09/2015
The powerful Gujarat Samachar group in Gujarat is refusing to be cowed by the ministry of Information and Broadcasting's notices to its TV channel, GSTV. The tussle began in February and is continuing. The two points of provocation are references to an unnamed leader who initiated the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan but does..
Has this government really clammed up?
IN SPECIAL REPORTS |03/03/2015
Did reporting government just get harder under the NDA? No access to cabinet notes, no leaky babudom, beat ministers not talking, lobbyists banished from corridors of power.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |02/09/2015
A Tamil news channel is fighting an order issued by the I and B ministry, alleging that two of its broadcasts has showed the prime minister in poor light and violated certain provisions of the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Network (Cable) Act, 1995. Sathiyam TV, a Chennai-based..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |13/08/2015
The public broadcaster should not carry news which criticises the government? Even when it is by a state chief minister? When did that become the norm? ET reports that officials of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting pulled up the director general of All India Radio for carrying a report on the..
BY sevanti ninan| IN OPINION |16/05/2013
All it takes for regulation to take hold in a wayward sector, is a new dispensation not inclined to look the other way.
Another stab at broadcast regulation
BY I and B| IN LAW AND POLICY |18/08/2010
In November, 2009 a Task Force was constituted by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to evolve a consensus on the draft broadcasting bill. It has recommended both content and carriage regulation.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS|05/01/2009
There is a delicious nugget in Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi’s report for 2008. He says that in the first quarter of the year RTI was able to uncover the fact that the Maharashtra Chief Minister’s relief fund was used, among other things, to build toilets in the Press Club of India at Delhi...
The Indian Media Takes On The Prime Minister¿s Office
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |31/08/2002
Post Summit Introspection
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |23/04/2002
The Indian Women’s Press Corp in Delhi had a discussion on what the relationship between the government and the media should be.
BJP charms the fourth estate in Goa
BY noronha|IN MEDIA PRACTICE|13/01/2002
The Bharatiya Janata Party has already taken the art of influencing the media to a new high in this small state.
