The Hindu : Adhere to the truth, PM tells media

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 11, 2003

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Adhere to the truth, PM tells media

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 10. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, today criticised the commercialisation of the media and described it as a passing phase; provided media organisations remained committed to the principles of journalism despite the challenges posed by market forces and technology.

Addressing the RSS mouthpiece, Panchjanya's Nachiketa Awards Ceremony here, Mr. Vajpayee spoke at length about the state of the media and stressed the need for adhering to the truth. He urged the Fourth Estate to be true to their conscience and ensure that truth prevails.

As for Panchjanya being "saffron-coloured'', the Prime Minister — who was the first editor of this weekly — maintained that there was no harm in having an ideology. "It is much better than having no ideology, and being driven only by market forces,'' he said in a veiled attack on many leading broadsheets of the country.

Mr. Vajpayee also used the occasion to send out a message to the political class; saying that democracy would not be able to survive in the absence of public morality.

Earlier, the Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, also spoke in a similar vein when he lamented the degeneration of both journalism and politics in India. Recalling the "good old days" when he and Mr. Vajpayee had started out as journalists, Mr. Advani said that "back then" politics, like journalism, used to be a mission. Stating that the degeneration of politics was more evident because India was a democracy, he wondered aloud whether there was any way the image of the "ugly Indian politician'' could be changed.

For his part, the Chairman of Prasar Bharati, M. V. Kamath, eulogised the Prime Minister and articulated the hope that the Nachiketa Awards for journalists would one day become the Pulitzer Prize of India. Further, after advocating the introduction of the `Kathopanishad' in the school curriculum, he said he was "all for saffronisation'' when Mr. Advani warned him about the criticism that he could attract for suggesting such a measure. While the Nachiketa Award was given to the Editor of Pudhari, Pratap Singh Jadhav, the Bipin Chandra Pal Award went to the French journalist, Francoise Gautier, the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Award to Nand Kishore Trikha, the Hanuman Prasad Poddar Award to Laxman Joshi (former Editor of Gomantak), the Sawmi Tilak Samman to Jagbandhu Mishra (Editor of Rashtradeep), the Gurudutt Award to Saurabh Shah (Gujarat Samachar), the Ramswarup Award to Ravindra Aggarwal (Associate Editor of Dainik Jagran), the Rajivlochan Agnihotri Award to Deepak Chaurasia (Aaj Tak) and the Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Award to Shankar Sharan (Associate Producer of Star News).

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