By IANS
New Delhi : On World Press Freedom Day, Thursday, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi announced that All India Radio and Doordarshan would have a 50:50 ratio of men and women for anchoring, reporting and all other news-related work from August 15, India’s Independence Day.
While addressing a seminar here jointly organised by the ministry of women and child development and the Indian Women’s Press Corps on ‘Gender Equality in Media’ Dasmunshi said the “country requires it (gender equality) and the people desire it”.
He then turned his attention to the issue of freedom of press and alleged that while Indian media barons and employers were enjoying “freedom of press” they did not allow “freedom of journalists”.
“In India we have freedom of press – yes; but freedom of journalists – not yet. Sometimes journalists work in most pitiable conditions,” added the minister.
“How many journalists are protected by the norms and regulations of employment?” asked Dasmunshi, adding, “One journalist I know had a critical problem and even though she rushed by an auto-rickshaw, she got delayed by five minutes and missed the sound byte. She started crying and Somnathda (Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee) and I gave her the bytes again, lest she lose her job.”
He alleged, “75 percent journalists in India are voucher paid (as against regular salaried employees). Does this reinforce the freedom of press?”
Dasmunshi also brutally attacked the TV channels for blowing out of proportion the pecking scene between Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Indian film star Shilpa Shetty in April at a function concerning AIDS awareness.
“One 28 second shot was shown on the channels 28 times, 48 times, 88 times, even 100 times. Is it for commercial purposes, TRP purposes? In a country of one billion people, I don’t know how this becomes breaking news,” said the minister.
Earlier at the seminar, Renuka Chowdhury, minister of state for women and child development, stressed on the need for overall improvement in the conditions for working women in all spheres to ensure that “they do not have to compromise their reproductive period to attend to their productive period”, since the age at which women can perform best is also the time their fertility is at its peak.
Noted journalist Mrinal Pande presided over the proceedings. She noted that the growth of TV channels in different parts of the country has provided the until now unavailable opportunity to educated women from small towns, more comfortable with their vernacular language, to come forward and progress in the media.