Draft law for journalists' protection: Rajeev Gowda

Congress MP Rajeev Gowda on Wednesday demanded a law for the protection of journalists, saying the absence of a legal mechanism to create a safe environment for the functioning of media persons will have an adverse impact on public discourse.

Raising the issue as a Special Mention in Rajya Sabha, the Karnataka MP said India has become "one of the most dangerous countries" in the world to be a journalist in the past several years.

"We have all heard of tragic cases of murders of journalists. Threats, intimidation and violence against journalists are also major problems. How long will we let this continue? In the absence of legal protection and mechanisms to create a safe environment for journalists and media persons, the public domain and discourse suffer the most," he said.

"I urge the government to enact legislation for the protection of journalists and the media, and ensure that freedom of the press stays alive," he said.

Emphasising that there was an "urgent need" to enact national legislation for the protection of journalists, he referred to the Global Impunity Index by the Committee To Protect Journalists, which features countries with the worst record of punishing killers of journalists, in which India is ranked 13 and Reporters Without Borders listing India at 140th out of 180 countries on its World Press Freedom Index.

He also noted that a sub-committee of the Press Council of India prepared a detailed report on the attacks faced by working journalists in 2015, which had found that 80 journalists have been killed in India since 1990.

Most of these cases are still pending in courts and the Press Council report had demanded that a separate law be enacted for the safety of journalists across India, he said suggesting that this report could become the basis for drafting the law.