New Delhi : Chairperson of Press Council of India and former Supreme Court Ranjana Desai has stressed on the need to strengthen the autonomous press body. Desai made the request while addressing a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, sources said on Monday.
Earlier today, the Parliamentary committee, led by MP Nishikant Dubey reviewed the harmonisation of laws related to media including for print, TV and digital media platforms.
Officials from the Information Broadcasting Ministry and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology were also present during the meeting.
According to the Lok Sabha Secretariat the agenda of the meeting was "Examination of the Subject- 'Review of implementation of Laws related to all forms of Media' Evidence of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and to hear the views of Press Council of India (PCI)."
Apart from Dubey, the meeting was attended by Arun Kumar Sagar, Devesh Shakya, Saket Gokhale, Sujeet Kumar, Sasmit Patra, Kartikeya Sharma, Lahar Singh Siroya, KTS Tulsi, Appalanaidu Kalisetti, and MK Vishnu Prasad,
The meeting was held at Parliament House Annexe at 11 AM. PCI is a statutory autonomous body set up under the Press Council Act, 1978 with the objective of preserving the freedom of press and of maintaining and improving the standards of newspapers and the news agencies in India, and also to inculcate the principles of self-regulation among the press.
The Council takes either suo-motu congnisance or complaints regarding the contents in print media which are in violation of the 'Norms of Journalistic Conduct'. PCI is, by convention, headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, and comprises of 28 members.
The Parliamentary standing committee consists of 30 members in total right now, with 20 being from Lok Sabha from various political parties. The members from each houses are nominated by the Speaker for Lok Sabha MPs and Chairman for RS MPs.
The Ministry of Communications, the Department of Posts, Department of telecommunications, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting all come under the committee's jurisdiction.
The committee considers only such Bills introduced in either of the Houses as are referred to it by the Speaker, Lok Sabha or the Chairperson, Rajya Sabha as the case may be. The committee also considers national long-term policy documents presented to the Parliament and referred to them.