Press Council may be replaced with media council, says Sushma

Press Council may be replaced with media council, says Sushma
Press Trust of India

Bhubaneswar, April 2: The Union Government is actively considering to set up a media council in place of the present Press Council of India (PCI) with a view to bring the electronic media, internet and dotcoms within the scope of the new body.

The proposed media council would be given adequate teeth to look into violation of media codes, the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Sushma Swaraj told a press conference here today.

She said discussions were continuing with different political parties in this regard and thereafter the government would bring forward necessary legislation in the parliament.

Referring to recent controversy over Tehelka.com expose, Swaraj said the Congress party, “which was involved in a series of scams, had forefeited the moral right to resort to agitations demanding resignation of the NDA government”.

“Those who are living in glass houses should not throw stones at others”, she said adding the action of Congress party was simply ridiculous.

The Minister justified the institution of an inquiry into the expose by a retired judge of the Supreme Court stating that it was meant to bring out the truth before the people.

The inquiry would establish if the whole exercise was done at somebody’s behest to malign certain people or it was intended to end corruption in the system, she said adding if “it was aimed at ending corruption in the system we will welcome it”. We should not prejudge the issue before the enquiry was over, she said.

Stating that there was enough scope for “manipulations” in the Tehelka tapes, Swaraj said the tapes were of 100 hour duration of which edited visuals of only four hours were shown to the people. This meant that they had kept to themselves 24 times more than what they had shown to the people for 10 days, she said.

Admitting that initially her party had received a “gehri chot” (deep scar) after the Tehelk.com expose, Swaraj expressed confidence that we will overcome this when the truth comes out.

She said if anybody was found guilty in the inquiry report her party would not hesitate to take action against him as per law whosoever he might be.Denying that her party was a divided house as far as Tehelka was concerned, Swaraj said all were interested in bringing out the truth.

She refused to comment on the reported observation of the former defence minister, George Fernandes “that the entire episode pointed to a failure of the intelligence bureau”. “I have not read his statement so far”, she said.

Swaraj described as baseless and politically motivated the recent controversy over National film award and said the controversy was avoidable. It was a malicious propaganda against the government, she said.

She said when a sitting MP of Congress party headed the panel of jury, there was no ruckus, but now all sorts of things were said against some members of the jury for their alleged allegiance to BJP.

Swaraj claimed that by any stretch of imagination only three of the 16 member jury could be said to have allegiance to BJP. All the members of the jury had been chosen because of their excellence in various fields, she said.

Denying that she was trying to push through the saffron agenda, Swaraj said Tarun Vijay, editor of Panchajanya had accreditation for five years as a film critic apart from editing the largest selling Hindi weekly.

Similarly, Madhumita Rout was chosen as a jury member not because she was dance tutor to her (Swaraj’s) daughter but because she was a well known Odissi dancer and came from a renowned family of classical dancers.

Referring to refusal of the award by some film personalities including Goutam Ghosh and Soumitra Chatterjee, Swaraj said she had selected Ghosh as the chairman of the Satyajit Ray Film Institute during her earlier stint as I and B Minister in 1998.

“Does it mean that I was fair then and now I am unfair”, she asked. The Minister said those of the jury who were criticising the selection of awards lacked team spirit.

Asked if the government would frame a guideline for constitution of the panel of jury, the Minister said the process followed to chose the jury members in all earlier occasions was also adhered to this time.

Swaraj reiterated the government decision not to allow foreign investment into the country’s print media.

Referring to the inauguration of the regional 24-hour Oriya satellite channel yesterday, the Minister said that the government would soon notify making it compulsory for the cable operators in Orissa to show this channel apart from dd 1 and ii channels.