A report of the ministerial panel, suggesting steps to “neutralise” the negative narrative against the government, kicked off a political row with the Congress dubbing it as a “naked attempt to attack free press” and a bid to “weaken democracy”.
The report of the Group of Ministers has suggestions of “tracking 50 negative and 50 positive influencers” on social media and “neutralise people who are writing against the government without facts to spread fake news”.
The GoM, comprising nine ministers – Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Smriti Irani, S Jaishankar, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Hardeep Singh Puri, Babul Supriyo, Anurag Thakur and Kiren Rijiju, held six meetings between June 14 and July 19 before putting together the 97-page report.
“...this certainly seems to be a very-very blatant naked attempt to attack free press and free voices,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate told reporters and demanded the resignations of I&B Minister Javadekar and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
She claimed that some of the suggestions from the report were also included in the Information Technology (Intermediary guidelines and digital media ethics codes) Rules 2021 under the IT Act 2000.
“Some of the suggestions of the committee were actually made into law, this is a breach of privilege, it is keeping Parliament in the black,” she said.
Shrinate said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “actually preparing to stab us in the back by compromising the freedom of speech and expression in the country by first controlling free press”.
(Published 04 March 2021, 17:56 IST)
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