1) First of all, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Syed needs to be commended for constituting the EC and fulfilling his recent commitment in this regard. The EC would decide about the new advertisement policy in the state but the question is what criteria it is going to adopt for releasing advertisement to newspapers, local as well as national. To arrive at any conclusion, it must ensure that discrimination is not meted out to any newspaper organisation, big or small, at any level. Even the small points are not to be left out.
2) The EC should first of all try to find out from the Lakhanpur Taxation Office about the exact quantity of newsprint that is being transported into J&K by the local newspaper organisations from outside the state. This would help the government to know about the number of copies that were actually being printed by the newspaper managements. On the basis of their actual circulation, newspapers, especially daily, can be placed in A, B, C and D categories for the purpose of fixation of different advertisement rates for different categories.
3) An extensive exercise ought to be carried by EC to find out the infrastructure and number of reporters and other staff members who have been engaged by each organisation.
4) Another most important point is the GP Fund of employees. The EC must find out how many local newspaper organisations fulfil this criteria and how many of their employees were covered under the GP Fund scheme.
5) The govt ad to all such newspapers of the state be stopped forthwith that act in a way prejudicial to the unity and integrity of the country and the state, express directly or indirectly lack of faith in or oppose the basic ideals of our country, ie democracy, socialism and secularism and accession of the state with Union of India, publish inflammatory or materials likely to foment communal disharmony, regional tension, violence or public disorder, promote secessionism, indulge in the publication of scurrilous or obscene material violating public decency or moral values and violate journalistic code as enunciated by Press Council of India or any other committee set up for the purpose.
6) The newspapers be also categorised as per their printing quality, readability, page layout, content, circulation and accessibility in the state.
7) Regional language newspapers of outside states, which are being published from J&K, should not be treated as local newspapers. As per Article 370, which grants special status to the state, outsiders cannot publish a newspaper from J&K in their own name. To start their publications from the state, they hire locals and get the titles shifted in their names. When they do so, one title gets registered in the name of two persons. This is against the Press and Registration of Book Act, 1867 which says that one title cannot be registered in the name of two persons. This is a wrong practice. Let these newspapers be treated in the category of outside newspapers and given ad as per their entitlement only. At present, they are being treated as local as well as national newspapers and get ad in both the categories. While this is beneficial for such organisations, it has been causing avoidable loss to the state exchequer.
8) The display ads, highlighting achievements of different government departments, be released in favour of all the local approved newspapers, both big as well as small.
9) Once the newspapers are categorised as per the quality of their printing, content and infrastructure and given ad in accordance to that, there would be no hue and cry from any media organisation. The rates of ad have to be fixed as per the category of the newspaper. The rates should not be the same for different categories of newspapers.
10) Let these rates be revised from time to time as the quality of a newspaper improves or deteriorates.
11) Without any bias, the EC must take all the possible measures to ensure the growth of small and upcoming newspapers in the state and strengthen healthy journalism. |
