Total Pageviews

Monday, May 5, 2014

Fwd: Prasar Bharati CEO points finger at minister for failure to get autonomy

Prasar Bharati CEO points finger at minister for failure to get autonomy

Source: http://millenniumpost.in/ 3rd May-2014




Acknowledging that certain portions of the Narendra Modi interview on Doordarshan 'were apparently edited', Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar on Friday said the public broadcaster had failed to get the autonomy it was seeking and pointed a finger at information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari for the failure to break the stranglehold.

In a strongly-worded letter to the Prasar Bharati board, under which Doordarshan and All India Radio function, Sircar said 'It appears that while portions critical of Doordarshan were telecast, certain comments on other personalities were apparently edited' in the Modi interview telecast on 27 April.

Stating that 'since questions have been raised in the public domain about the impartiality and motives of the public broadcaster', the Prasar Bharati board had 'taken several resolutions in the last two years, seeking more operational autonomy from the ministry, but it has failed to do so', Sircar said.

He said that 'in a way, therefore, the ministry of information and broadcasting lost an opportunity to convince a young minister (Manish Tewari) to break this long traditional linkage between the ministry and the News Division, which has continued unabated even after Prasar Bharati was born and assigned its distinct role in 1997'.

Indicating the manner in which the ministry controls the Prasar Bharati, he said: 'The mechanisms of appointment, transfers, career assessments and even punitive actions against senior officials of the News Division are bound to cast a 'shadow', in some form'.




2 comments: