Broadcasters body wants govt to review NDTV ban
TNN | Updated: Nov 6, 2016, 12.40 PM IST
NEW DELHI: The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has expressed "deep concern" over the one-day ban imposed on NDTV India by the interministerial committee set up by the Union information and broadcasting ministry. The NBA, which represents private television news and current affairs broadcasters in India, said the Hindi news channel had been "singled out when the rest of the media also did cover the (Pathankot) terror attack, and all such reports were available in the public domain".
The committee has ordered that the channel go off air for 24 hours from 00:01hrs on November 9 as it found its coverage of the January terrorist attack to be in violation of broadcasting norms.
It said the channel gave out sensitive information that could have been used by the handlers of the terrorists involved in the attack.
"It is surprising to note that NDTV India has been singled out by the IMC/MoI&B (inter-ministerial committee/ministry of information and broadcasting), when the rest of the media also did cover the terror attack and all such reports were available in the public domain. The IMC and the MoI&B should have seen it from the prism of freedom of the media, which is guaranteed in the Constitution and not gone strictly by the regulations under the Cable Act," NBA secretary general Annie Joseph said in a statement.
"It would have been appropriate if the ministry of information & broadcasting had referred the alleged violations of NDTV India to the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), the independent self-regulatory body of the NBA," she added.
The NBA urged the ministry to reconsider its decision "in the interest of the freedom of the media".
Source: Times of India
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