IFWJ underlines for Media Council on the National Press Day

Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) and leading trilingual newspaper ‘Desha Hitha’ today organised the National Press Day in the auditorium of the Indian Newspaper Society of New Delhi. It was attended by a large number of journalists belonging to different languages from all over the country. The IFWJ Secretary General Parmanand Pandey and the Editor of the Rashtriya Times, Shri Vijay Shankar Chaturvedi were the main speakers.

Journalists, non journalists of small, medium and big newspapers as well as audio-visual media participated in the programme. The IFWJ Secretary General Shri Pandey laid emphasis on setting up of a Media Commission to look into the problems and prospects of all types of media i.e. print, audio-visual and electronic to prepare a comprehensive policy for strengthening the freedom of speech and expression and ensuring the safety and security of the journalists. He said that the Press Council has become totally redundant in view of the formidable growth of audio-visual, social media, web portals and MoJo etc. Therefore, the need to have a Media Council for moral regulation of the media and also for addressing the problems of the journalists has become imperative. He told the august gathering on the occasion that the IFWJ has been consistently and continuously fighting for raising the economic and professional standards of the journalists. He underlined the need for taking effective steps by the government to prevent and deter the attacks on the journalists, which have unfortunately been growing in the recent times.

Shri Vijay Shankar Chaturvedi, the Editor of the Rashtriya Times, who has always been voicing the problems of the journalists of the small and medium newspapers, alleged that the present government is playing into the hands of the big newspapers, which have been cornering the bulk of advertisements. Big newspapers have failed to honour even the directions of the Supreme Court in extending even the statutory facilities to journalists but have prevailed upon the government to stop the advertisements to small and medium newspapers. As a result of it, hundreds of newspapers have either been closed or on the verge of the closure. Shri Chaturvedi called upon the government to immediately withdraw the new DAVP policy which has been adopted for releasing DAVP advertisements to newspapers.



The Principal Organiser of the programme and the editor of the trilingual-Kannada, Hindi and English – Desha Hitha, Mr. Kowdle Channappa outlined the programmes to be taken up for safeguarding the interests of the journalists and strengthening the tempo of freedom of speech and expression. He said that all great men of the country who made significant contributions during the freedom movement were journalists. Mr. Channappa exhorted the journalists of the present day to follow the path of their predecessors in the profession to make the democracy strong and vibrant .He gave detail information about the National Press Day and its significance for the present generation of journalists.

Among others who spoke on the occasion were mere Yogesh Bhatt and Ms Vaishali Jain. Mr. Punit Jain, the Senior Vice-President of the Times of India presided over the meeting and Mr. Adish Jain of INSAR, conducted the programme.


Rinku Yadav

Treasurer-IFWJ