The kerfuffle over the Press Council of India’s intervention in the Supreme Court on Kashmir Times Editor Anuradha Bhasin‘s petition seeking the lifting of curbs on the media in Kashmir refuses to die down. This, despite the PCI chairman Justice C.K. Prasad clarifying that far from backing the government, the Council was actually performing its…
Monthly Archives: August 2019
An ‘Indian Express’ reporter recounts a bone-chilling story of pure horror in Kashmir, as India’s media bodies beat around the bush
24 days after the “lockdown”—jargon for a brutal, undemocratic suppression of civil liberties—in Kashmir began, life continues to be hell for journalists in paradise. The physical, professional, psychological and commercial implications of the communications blackout on reporters, photographers, cameramen, editors and owners have been much catalogued. In today’s Indian Express, Adil Akhzer recounts a personal…
Press Council chairman denies PCI is supporting the “abrogation of freedom of the Press [in Kashmir] by government”; says PCI does not approve of any action that restricts free flow of information
As criticism mounts over the decision of the media watchdog Press Council of India (PCI) to intervene in the Supreme Court in a petition filed by a Kashmir woman newspaper editor against the curbs on the media in the valley, the Council’s chairman contends it has neither argued for the curtailment of the freedom of the…
45 tweets on Arun Jaitley by reporters, editors, presenters and owners, is all it takes to understand journalism, Delhi style: the scams, the papers, the gossip, the plugs, and the headline management
Arun Jaitley‘s “proximity” to the media, to put it mildly, was New Delhi’s worst-kept secret. Actually, South Delhi’s worst-kept secret, because beyond the southern borders of the BJP headquarters, nobody cared a flying fig for the man whose mass base, as Arun Shourie once put it, consisted of “six journalists” (here, here). Jaitley’s “affable” nature,…
‘The Hindu’ tears into Press Council backing curbs on media in Kashmir; says claim of threat to integrity and sovereignty provides a “rationale for despotism”
The Hindu has an excellent editorial on the Press Council of India’s shameless abdication of its mandate by backing the Narendra Modi government’s patently undemocratic curbs on the media in Kashmir. The newspaper reminds the PCI that its stance is contrary to its support to the Punjab Press in its “efforts to inform the people…
Two members of Press Council, and two journalists’ unions, blast PCI’s decision to back Narendra Modi government’s curbs on media in Kashmir
Two serving members of the Press Council of India, and two media organisations, have opposed PCI’s “unilateral” decision to back the Narendra Modi government’s curbs on the media, by seeking to intervene in a petition before the Supreme Court. Press Council members Jaishankar Gupta and C.K. Nayak, who are office bearers with Press Association, have…
Full text of the 7-page application made by the Press Council of India, backing the Narendra Modi government’s curbs on the media in Kashmir, in the “interest of integrity and sovereignty”
India’s media bodies have spectacularly failed Kashmir’s media as they battle physical, professional, psychological and commercial challenges, following the blockade of land lines, mobile phones and the internet. The owners’ body Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has been deathly silent, even while full editions of newspapers cannot be reported, printed or distributed. The Editors Guild of…
The website of Kashmir’s widest read English daily ‘Greater Kashmir’ has not been updated for 18 days now—a window to the Valley for Kashmiris across the world is shut
Eighteen days after a total communications blackout preceded the “lockdown” in Kashmir, the Valley’s leading English language newspaper Greater Kashmir is gasping for breath. Thanks to the blockade of fixed lines, mobile phones and the internet, Greater Kashmir‘s website has not been updated for more than two weeks now, and the last available e-paper is…
“Whatever is being reported by Indian media from Kashmir to show that everything is normal, everything is fine, the opposite is true”
With large sections of Indian mainstream media engaged in the patriotic duty of “manufacturing consent” for the Narendra Modi government’s undemocratic actions in Kashmir, the onus is increasingly on foreign media to provide the real picture, or the closest approximation to it. BBC Radio, for long seen to be “reliable” news provider by previously colonised…
“In an authoritarian state there is only one Truth; the newspapers are all alike, they all repeat the same one Truth. So do the radio stations, and you cannot listen to those of other countries”
What does a Kashmiri journalist who is neither a fidayeen anchor nor a studio warrior of the commando comic TV channels—on either side of the line of no control—feel about the undemocratic and unaccountable crackdown on media in the Valley? Srinagar-based journalist and broadcaster Gowhar Geelani—who believes both India and Pakistan should stay off Kashmir—has…
Raja Mohi-ud-din: editor, printer, publisher, distributor, messenger and store manager of a one-sheet Kashmiri newspaper that sells 500 copies in 5 minutes
In the New York Times, a graphic report of the state of journalists and journalism in Kashmir, following the communications blackout in the Valley. The paper tracks the life of Raja Mohi-ud-din, the editor of a Kashmiri newspaper, who wakes up at 2 am, carries the news for the next day’s issue on a pen…
Narendra Modi and Amit Shah brutally divided Jammu and Kashmir. Now, the media have neatly divided themselves: foreign vs ‘desi’; local vs Delhi; Kashmiri vs Pandit—journalism vs propaganda
Like so much else since the dawn of civilisation in 2014, journalistic coverage and assessment of the situation in Kashmir after the removal of Article 370 in the Valley has been severely polarised. On the one side is a contest between the establishment view of the Narendra Modi government, and the independent view of foreign news…
A brave woman newspaper Editor shows the chutzpah to mount a legal challenge to the Narendra Modi government’s squeeze on media freedom in Kashmir, while industry bodies watch on smugly
Indian media bodies—Press Council of India, Indian Newspaper Society, Editors Guild of India, the various Press Clubs et al—have been happy to watch the extraordinary squeeze on journalism in Kashmir, following the Narendra Modi government’s decision to strip the Valley of special Article 370, silently from the sidelines. Silence bordering on complicity. It is as…
Editors Guild finally—finally!—speaks out on “draconian” Kashmir media blackout, seeks fair access for local reporters
Six days after a blanket ban on communications crippled journalism in Kashmir, the Editors Guild of India finally has finally found its voice. “The Editors Guild of India is deeply concerned over the continued shutdown in communication links with the Kashmir Valley and the consequent curtailment of the media’s freedom and ability to report fairly…
In the middle of an inexorable conflict situation in Kashmir, despite a brutal, undemocratic crackdown on civil liberties, there’s only one thing on the mind of a ‘saas’ who was once ‘bahu’
Mothers will be mothers, but reporters can be saviours. Vijaita Singh, a journalist with The Hindu, on assignment in Kashmir, met a woman in Srinagar, at a so-called “helpline” where citizens are allowed to make a phon calls, like prisoners. In the midst of a massive clampdown on communication networks in the Valley, Harvinder Singh…
In Kashmir, there are strict orders not to issue “curfew passes” to local reporters, to prevent them for going around. But then, there is no curfew, according to Delhi-based TV news channels.
As the lockdown—jargon for a brutal, undemocratic suppression of civil liberties—in Kashmir enters its fifth day, Zulfikar Majid, the Srinagar correspondent of Bangalore’s oldest English daily Deccan Herald recounts his search for an internet connection. “I managed to reach the office of a regional newspaper, hoping to get internet access. “I saw the faces of…
For three days running, Kashmir’s newspapers have not been published. To no one’s surprise, neither the Press Council of India, nor the Indian Newspaper Society, nor the Editors Guild seem to be unduly bothered.
These are the front pages of four English language newspapers published from Srinagar, for Sunday, August 4, and Monday, August 5, 2019. The newspapers have not been published on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, following the clampdown on phone, internet, broadband, and cable TV services in the wake of India’s decision to strip the Valley of…
Screenshots, thumb drives, sat phones, OB vans, and all the fancy footwork that fine reporters are using to get their stories out to counter the “propaganda blitzkrieg” on Kashmir
Three days on, the first reports are coming in of the situation on the ground in Kashmir, after New Delhi imposed a blanket clampdown on landline, mobile and internet services, before revoking #Article370 in the Valley. The Telegraph‘s Sankarshan Thakur (above) has a diary of the run-up to the “lockdown”—jargon for a brutal suppression for…
With phones, mobiles and internet switched off, it’s a psychological “war without witness” in Kashmir. And it’s hell for reporters, photographers and cameramen in paradise.
The “lockdown” of Kashmir—mild jargon for a brutal, undemocratic suppression of civil liberties in the Valley—in the run up to and following the bifurcation of the State has cast a dark shadow over journalism with phone lines cut and internet shut. The Telegraph (above) reports in its issue today that it has not been able…
Out of 24 newspapers in 9 languages, only three consider Ravish Kumar’s Magsaysay Award worthy of proper front-page display. George Orwell, also born in Motihari, would be convinced that “Big Brother is watching you”.
How much pride does Indian news media have in one of its own—Ravish Kumar of NDTV India—winnning the 2019 Magsaysay Award for “harnessing journalism to give voice to the voiceless”? Surely, it is front-page news given the spate of bad news dogging the industry? Surely, it is the kind of feel-good stories owners and managers…
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