Messages In This Digest (2
Messages)
Messages
- 1.
-
Fri Mar 5, 2010 5:54 pm (PST)
*'Paid news' phenomenon a serious matter: government *
http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20100305/818/tnl-paid-news-phenomenon-a-serious-matte.html
Fri, Mar 5 02:06 PM
New Delhi, March 5 (IANS) The phenomenon of 'paid news' is a serious matter
as it influences the functioning of a free press, the government declared in
parliament Friday, adding there was 'urgent need to protect the public's
right to correct and unbiased information' .
'This phenomenon of 'paid news' is...a serious matter as it influences the
functioning of a free press,' Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika
Soni said in response to a calling attention motion in the Rajya Sabha.
'The media acts as a repository of public trust for conveying correct and
true information to the people. However, when paid information is presented
as news content, it could mislead the public and thereby hamper their
judgment to form a correct opinion,' Sone maintained.
'Thus, there is no denying the fact that there is an urgent need to protect
the public's right to correct and unbiased information,' she added.
Speaking on the motion, Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley (Bharatiya Janata
Party) said paid news should 'be seen as trade or business with an unlawful
purpose as it has nothing to do with freedom of speech'.
He said a regulator should be set up with judicial authority to which all
such complaints can be referred and which should have powers to impose
deterrent penalties.
'If the government has the will to find a solution, it is possible,' Jaitley
said, adding that paid news was 'violation of income tax laws and subversion
of free and fair elections'.
In response, Soni asserted that the government 'does not view paid news
syndrome as freedom of speech'.
She also pointed out that the Press Council of India, in consultation with
the Election Commission, was examining the setting up of a mechanism to look
into complaints of paid news and the exercise is expected to be completed
later this month.
According to Sitaram Yechury (Communist Party of India-Marxist or CPI-M),
the corporatisation of media houses was leading to the paid news phenomena
'which is a negation of parliamentary democracy'.
Urging deterrent action, he suggested the government should stop its
advertisements to newspapers and media houses 'indulging in this
malpractice'.
In recent months, Soni noted, there had been a number of media reports that
'sections of the electronic and print media have received monetary
considerations for publishing or broadcasting in favour of particular
individuals or organisations or corporate entities, what is essentially
'advertisement' disguised as 'news''.
This has been commonly referred to as the 'paid news syndrome', Soni said,
adding: 'While this is not a new phenomenon, it has attracted greater public
attention of late as it is being widely discussed and debated across the
country'.
There had been cases reported 'wherein identical articles with photographs
and headlines have appeared in competing publications carrying bylines of
different authors or sometimes even without bylines, around the same time.
'On the same page of specific newspapers, articles have been printed during
elections projecting rival candidates, both as winning candidates. While it
is widely agreed that it is not easy to find proof of such malpractices,
there exists strong circumstantial evidence,' Soni maintained.
Lauding the media's self-regulatory role, she said the Editor's Guild of
India, the Press Council of India, the Indian Women's Press Corps and the
Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) had 'vigorously raised'
the issue on various occasions.
The APUWJ had even named six newspapers for carrying numerous paid news
stories, she added.
Indo Asian News Service
- 2.
-
Sat Mar 6, 2010 2:23 am (PST)
I/II.
http://news.oneindia.in/2010/03/05/maoists-want-to-overthrow-indian-state-pillai.html
Maoists want to overthrow Indian state: Pillai
Friday, March 5, 2010,17:16 [IST]
New Delhi <#127326987838ba17_ >, Mar 5: Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on
Friday, Mar 5, said that Maoists agenda was to overthrow the Indian state by
2050.
Pillai was speaking at the Institute of Defence Studies <#127326987838ba17_>and
Analysis in New Delhi <#127326987838ba17_>.
"Documents which were found revealed that the Maoist agenda was to overthrow
the Indian state by 2050, possibly with the help of ex-Armymen," Pillai
said.
"Maoists were not serious about talks because they weren't under enough
pressure to do so," Pillai said.
"Right now, Maoists were looking to regroup and build their own
army<#127326987838ba17_>towards
their plans," he said adding that they were using administrative vacuum and
under development to do this.
Pillai added that the only way to fight them was through development.
Earlier, Home Minister P Chidambaram had asked Maoists to abjure violence
and asked them to contact for peace talks.
II.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/national/maoists-want-overthrow-indian-state-2050-pillai-534
Maoists want to overthrow Indian state by 2050: Pillai
Mar 05 2010
New Delhi: Maoists are probably getting help from some ex-Armymen and have
plans to overthrow the Indian state through their armed struggle and control
the government by 2050, the home secretary, Mr Gopal K. Pillai, said on
Friday.
Addressing a seminar on "Left Wing Extremism Situation in India", Mr Pillai
said the Maoists might be getting the help of some former soldiers in
carrying out subversive activities.
Mr Pillai also said stamping out the Maoist menace is going to be a "long
bloody war" because the armed rebel cadres were very highly motivated and
trained.
"They are very highly motivated, highly trained. I am quite certain that
there are some, may be some ex-army or some people who have been with them,"
he said.
Giving reasons for arriving at this conclusion, Mr Pillai said after
launching any attack, the Naxals conduct a post-mortem and analyse the whole
operation.
"After every attack, they do a post-mortem and analysis. The analysis is as
good as armed forces of any country does."
On Maoists' plans, Mr Pillai said, "the overthrow of the Indian state is not
something they are willing to do tomorrow or the day after. Their strategy,
according to a booklet they circulated, is that they are looking for at
2050, some documents say in 2060."
Mr Pillai said Naxals were not looking to overthrow the Indian state in 2012
or 2013. It is a long steady plan and in the past 10 years they slowly build
up the movement, he added.
The home secretary said 908 people have lost their lives last year, the
highest since 1971, in Naxal violence and it may go up in this year and next
year become coming down.
He also said, "the operations have not hit even five per cent of hardcore
militants. The real armed cadres are yet to come out." Unless they feel the
heat they will not come for talks and whatever statement they were making
about peace was not serious, he added.
II.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Maoists-looking-at-armed-overthrow-of-state-by-2050/articleshow/5648742.cms
'Maoists looking at armed overthrow of state by 2050'TNN, Mar 6, 2010,
03.15am IST
NEW DELHI: Home secretary G K Pillai on Friday said Maoists were looking at
the armed overthrow of the Indian state by 2050, acknowledging that the
state was ill-equipped at present to put significant pressure on them.
Addressing a seminar on `Left-wing extremism' at the Institute for Defence
Studies and Analyses (IDSA), Pillai said, "The overthrow of the Indian state
is not something they are willing to do tomorrow or the day after. Their
strategy, according to a booklet they circulated, is that they are looking
at 2050, some documents say at 2060."
Pillai described Maoists as a formidable enemy, saying they had not come
under any significant pressure yet, because their core armed cadres remained
intact and out of reach of the Indian state. Dismissing recent talk of
talks, Pillai was sure that the Maoists would only come for negotiations
when they felt the heat, which they were not at present.
The Indian state, its administrative lapses and poor governance were largely
to blame for the growth of Naxalism, he said. The Maoists had developed
bases in remote, forest areas, where they operated in a perceived
administrative vacuum. There were many districts, Pillai said, where the
government had not existed for decades.
They also lived in a strange paradox, opposing development on the one hand
but drawing oxygen from the development dissatisfaction of the local people,
he added.
However, Pillai said that for the first time in the past one year, the state
had decided to tackle this extremism head-on, and take back much of the
areas "lost" to the Maoists. In Chhattisgarh, for instance, the state had
reclaimed about 4,000 sq km of territory that had been under a severe
development deficit and under Maoist control.
Over the past 60 years, the Indian state had created a huge detritus of poor
governance -- whether it was laws governing tribals' access to forest land
or their right to minor forest produce. All this was changing, but very
slowly, because the Indian system has traditionally moved very slowly,
Pillai said.
He cited the new mining act which will be introduced in Parliament soon. The
legislation envisages a fund in perpetuity for the development of local
villages; new power plants will have to give subsidised or free power to
surrounding villages, and the government is in the process of withdrawing
cases against tribals for accessing minor forest produce. But these measures
will take a while to show up on the ground.
The government was also hamstrung by the fact that different states took
different views on tackling the menace. For instance, West Bengal continues
to take an ambivalent position. In January 2009, it refused to allow
inter-state operations against Maoists, but a year and many killings later,
the CPM government is now seeing the value of this.
Pillai said the Maoists had been very successful in setting up their
structures and systems, funds and training as well as access to about Rs
1,400 crore a year in funds. Their operations were largely low cost, but
Pillai was clear that they were not really interested in any discussions
with the state. Their aim was armed revolt. In West Bengal, where the CPM
thought it could convince the Maoists to change their ways, 159 party
workers were killed by the ultras in West Midnapore alone.
Pillai said one of the first acts of the Maoists was to demystify state
authority by shooting at the face of officialdom in the target area. The
Maoists were also helped by so-called intellectual groups and civil society
organisations by building resistance and protests to things like SEZ, land
reforms or land acquisition for development.
Maoist violence claimed its highest toll of 908 in 2009, the highest yet
since 1971. Pillai expected this to go up significantly in the coming years,
before the state could get on top of things.
The lack of capacities in the state was manifest in the grim fact that in
all its operations so far, not more than 5% of the core armed cadres of the
Maoists had been hit. "The real armed cadres are yet to come out," he said.
However, in the recent past, intelligence gathering had improved
significantly which led to the arrest of several key leaders.
Maoists, Pillai said, were very meticulous in conducting their
reconnaissance, attacks, and post-mortems -- pointing to some professional
help, either from former soldiers or others. "Now they can bring many
sectors of Indian economy to their knees. But they don't want to do it
today. They know that if they do that now, the state will come very hard.
They are not fully prepared to face the onslaught of the state machinery.
So, they would rather go very slowly," he said.
"They are very highly motivated, highly trained. I am quite certain that
there are some, may be some ex-army or some people who have been with them,"
Pillai said.
--
Peace Is Doable
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