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Patna,(BiharTimes): The breaking news is that the Information and Public Relations Department Minister, Brishen Patel, has said that there is absolute freedom of Press in Bihar.
Replying to a debate on the budget of his department in the state Assembly on Monday he said that the print media in Bihar is ‘absolutely free’ to write news of its choice and the state government had never put any pressure on it or the electronic media. |
According to him the state government had never put any pressure on the media, both print and electronic, to write or telecast news in a specific manner. His department or any other department had never reacted to negative or even unsubstantiated news published by newspapers nor have they any intention to do so.
Interestingly, the minister’s comment came within a month of the Press Council of India Chairman Justice (Retd) Markandey Katju’s statement strongly criticizing chief minister Nitish Kumar for imposing undeclared Press censorship in Bihar.
Later several senior journalists of Bihar held a meeting at Gandhi Sanghralaya to openly back Katju’s remarks. This included Manikant Thakur of BBC, Irshad-ul-Haque of Tehelka (HIndi), Ganga Prasad of Jansatta etc.
However, all those present were outstation journalists and free lancers and not those working on payroll for the Bihar edition of any newspaper.
A few months back IBN 7 even carried a half an hour long panel discussion at its prime time programme to debate how powerful chief ministers like Nitish Kumar, Narendra Modi, Mayawati etc are controlling the Press in their respective state.
It is keeping these developments in mind that the Bihar minister stood up to claim that there is no Press censorship in the state.
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