Prasar Bharati asks for ‘real autonomy’
The interview of Mr Modi was broadcast in April, during the Lok Sabha poll campaign
New Delhi: The CEO of Prasar Bharati, Jawahar Sircar, has warned the Union government that there was a risk of repeating malpractices like “the heavily-edited interview” of Narendra Modi at the national broadcaster unless it was provided with “real autonomy.” A UPA government appointee, Mr Sircar, has in a series of letters has hinted towards government interference. He even claimed that top executives at Prasar Bharati are not consulted before transferring key officials.
“I hope you will consider this proposal (to keep his agency in the loop) favourably as we do not want to land up in issues, such as the deliberately-edited interview of Shri Modi on the 27th of April, which created such controversy,” he wrote to the information and broadcasting ministry. Mr Sircar also wrote to the I&B Ministry on Friday, August 8.
The same day Mr S.M. Khan, in charge of News at Doordarshan, is understood to have been relieved of the charge and asked to proceed on compulsory leave. Mr Khan headed the news section of the national broadcaster when the Modi interview was shot and broadcast. The interview was broadcast in April, during the Lok Sabha poll campaign. The UPA government was accused of influencing the censoring of BJP’s PM candidate’s interview as the Doordarshan broadcast its shortened version.
Mr Modi’s several comments were omitted. The interview was chopped off by almost 27 minutes to fit it into a fixed time slot. Meanwhile, the Doordarshan journalist Ashok Shrivastav, who had conducted that interview, tweeted on Saturday that he is back at work in DD.