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Congress distances itself from media bill
proposed by own MP
Tuesday May 01, 2012 09:58:20 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi: The Congress
Tuesday distanced itself from a bill on media regulation proposed
by Meenakshi Natarajan, a Lok Sabha MP and an aide of party
general secretary Rahul Gandhi, even as Press Council of India
chairman Markandey Katju accused the media of diverting interest
from national issues.
"The bill is based on her (Natarajan's) views. These are not the
views of Rahul Gandhi. Neither are these his views nor has she got
his consent on this bill," Congress General Secretary Janardan
Dwivedi told reporters here.
Natarajan, a first-time MP, was supposed to introduce The Print
and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012, a
private member's bill, last week. However, she was absent during
the session.
Her bill proposes sweeping powers to an authority to regulate
media including banning or suspending coverage of an event or
incident that may pose a threat to national security from foreign
or internal sources.
The bill even suggests a fine of up to Rs. 50 lakh, suspension of
the organisation's licence for up to 11 months and cancellation in
some cases. Natarajan, 38, was elected from the Mandsaur
constituency in Madhya Pradesh in 2009.
She is also an All India Congress Committee secretary and part of
Rahul Gandhi's core team.
The proposed media regulation bill has sparked a vigorous debate,
with many senior journalists decrying subversion of democracy and
calling for freedom of content and expression.
Katju, however, pitched for some form of media regulation for the
sake of national responsibility.
The media is diverting attention from real issues like poverty and
farmers' suicides by giving more coverage to cricket and film
stars' affairs, Katju told NDTV in a debate on the issue of media
regulation Tuesday.
In a talk on 'Media and Social Responsibility' in Pune last week,
Katju had said some regulation of content in the press is needed
as the media seems to have lost its sense of proportion between
information and entertainment. The media should take a leading
role in guiding the nation towards positive transition, said Katju,
a retired judge of the Supreme Court.
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