New Delhi, Nov. 27 (UNI): Three major national newspaper and news agency employees organisations have opposed the entry of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Indian media, and urged the Centre to bring forward a legislation in the monsoon session of Parliament to make the 1955 cabinet decision on the subject a part of the statutes.

This will put an end to pressures from imperialist powers to force the FDI upon the Indian media, said the All India Newspaper Employees Federation, UNI Workers Union and the Federation of PTI Employees.

In a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, they said that 1955 cabinet decision taken under the Prime Ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru, to keep the FDI out of the Indian media should be given the sanctity of law through an Act of Parliament.

"Indian media never wanted FDI. It is the foreign powers, especially the US and the UK, which have been obsessed with subverting the freedom of the press in India through the medium of FDI, " they said, adding that "the four previous Prime Ministers were subjected to tremendous pressures by the imperialist powers to accept FDI in the print media. These pressures have not abated and the present incumbent is being made to face similar pressures also."

Pointing out that the first two Press Commissions had been against foreign ownership of newspapers and news agencies in India, they said that their views and the views of Jawaharlal Nehru were still relevant today. "Jawaharlal Nehru warned the Indian people that pressure tactics, hints, almost threats from Britain and America were a recurring matter," they said quoting from the speech of Pandit Nehru in the Rajya Sabha in 1962.

The organisations said the worst aspect of reforms was the imperialist powers dictating to successive Governments in India since 1991 to accept FDI in the print media and electronic media, thus aiming at the jugular of Indian polity. "The Indian print media is the only effective critic of imperialist countries' neo-colonian shenanigans around the world, including India."

The nine-page memorandum concluded saying "the poison of FDI must never be allowed to pollute the Indian press which has the most outstanding traditions of exposing the shenanigans of imperialist powers that are inimical to India's independence and territorial integrity."

The memorandum was signed by All India Newspaper Employees' Federation General Secretary K L Kapur, Federation of PTI Employee Unions General Secretary and UNI Workers Union President M L Joshi.