Censorship kills Freedom of Press in India

The web is a world of information. Each day, thousands of articles are published on the web. While surfing the net, I came across an interesting piece in The New York Times Editorial page today with the headline 'India's Press Under Siege'. Sounds familiar? Yes, this happened during Indira Gandhi's regime when she declared a State of Emergency in the country on June 25,1975. Among other things, the Indira government imposed restrictions on what to publish and what not to publish in the newspapers. Then, there were no TV channels. Now, with over 748 permitted private satellite channels besides 30 government run channels in India, it's hard to imagine media censorship. But would you believe if we told you that it does happen now?

The only change is that the censorship is not directly by the government. This time, the control is in the hands of private players and politicians. To make things clear, most big news channels are owned by industrialists and obviously they wouldn't want any news that shows their companies in bad light. A pen is mightier than the sword and it is this pen that the private players fear will bring disrepute to their respective organisation. In today's age, it's no secret that every paper, media channel has a certain leaning towards a political party or a industrialist. Even a layman who follows news will be able to tell which party or person the paper/media supports. But imagine if you were asked to change journalistic principles to please your boss? Would you do that? Most honest journalists wouldn't or so it seems.

Remember how Hindu disowned its liberal editor Siddharth Varadarajan? According to the NYT, the Mumbai-based DNA newspaper pulled off an article from its website authored by Rana Ayyub for questioning Modi on the appointment of Amit Shah as the BJP head. We all know the cases in which the new BJP head is involved. Yet, they were forced to remove the write-up which told the bitter truth.

In the Hansindia portal itself, we faced pressure to remove an article that talked about Akash Ambani's involvement in the Aston Martin road crash.

More recently, Indian Television's most well known journalists Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose quit CNN/IBN after the company was acquired by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries group. The NYT report says that, Reporters Without Borders ranked India as one of the most restrictive countries in the world for press freedom.

The TRAI is expected to soon release recommendations on regulating media cross-ownership. Let's hope the public finally gets to read news that's unbiased after all they deserve to know the truth. Besides, media stories are like gospels for them. Several people make decisions or judge a particular political party, industry going by what's propogated by the media. Interestingly at one point, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted in favour of giving freedom to the press. Wonder if he will step in now to do some damage control.Check this out...

Will the Freedom of Press be compromised in India? Can journalists report what they want to say? Your guess is as good as mine.