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2006
Kurra Bewarse
Username: 2006
Post Number: 524
Registered: 05-2006
Posted From: 24.13.121.6
| | Posted on Friday, December 22, 2006 - 3:12 pm: |    |
Dangerous intolerance
A nasty situation has developed for media freedom in South India's largest State — with the dominant Eenadu group targeted by a State Government that is at the receiving end of aggressive investigative journalism. The modus operandi of the Rajasekhara Reddy Government has an element of ingenuity: it is to attack the financial base of the media group, ostensibly targeting the owners' HUF financial institution, Margadarsi Financiers, while claiming that no attempt has been made to curb either the daily newspaper or the television channels of the group. At a time when the Reserve Bank of India is looking into a Congress MP's complaint relating to Margadarsi's alleged lack of compliance with section 45S, an amended provision of the RBI Act of 1934, two extraordinary Government Orders, dated December 19, 2006 — one appointing a State Government advisor and the other an Inspector General of the Criminal Investigation Department to pursue the matter — are shockingly out of jurisdiction as well as mala fide. RBI sources, speaking to The Hindu, have certified Margadarsi's "impeccable track record, with good assets to back it up," with no complaint of default from a single depositor. They have indicated that independent of the motive and politicised circumstances of the complaint forwarded to it, the central bank has acted professionally and pursued a "non-disruptive enforcement path." On its part, Margadarsi has taken a number of responsible steps, notably discontinuance of all kinds of deposits, including renewals, and opening an escrow account to facilitate repayment of all the matured deposits. Under the circumstances, asking a State Government advisor to "examine all the relevant papers and other material" and determine "if there is any reason to believe that this financial establishment is acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the depositors and whether the financial establishment is not likely to return the deposits collected from the public" is clearly designed to be disruptive. Unleashing the police on Margadarsi is crude confirmation that the idea is to trigger a run on Ramoji Rao's financial base. If that were not the intention, would not a responsible State Government leave it to the RBI to find a non-disruptive solution in the interest of hundreds of thousands of depositors?
Eenadu, with a circulation of 1.15 million and a readership estimated by NRS 2006 at 13.81 million, has taken on the Congress regime in Andhra Pradesh in full campaign mode. It has gone all out to investigate and expose the land surrender controversy involving Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy. The opposition parties have alleged a major impropriety in the sudden surrender of over 300 acres of land by the Chief Minister's family, when, in the first place, they should not have possessed this land in violation of ceiling and other laws. Eenadu has been running a series of investigative stories to bring to light the still unsurrendered land with the first family. As the Leader of the Opposition and Telugu Desam leader N. Chandrababu Naidu has noted, the intention is to "financially cripple" the opponent. As if this were not enough, a special public prosecutor has been appointed to prosecute Eenadu's Editor-in-Chief for alleged criminal defamation relating to material published on the Home Minister in July 2006! The Government and the dominant media player in Andhra Pradesh can be said to be at war — and the fragility of media freedom in India, in the face of political intolerance, stands exposed disturbingly. The party of Jawaharlal Nehru, a great defender of press freedom, should be ashamed of what its government is doing in Andhra Pradesh.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/23/stories/2006122305 191200.htm |
2006
Kurra Bewarse
Username: 2006
Post Number: 523
Registered: 05-2006
Posted From: 24.13.121.6
| | Posted on Friday, December 22, 2006 - 2:53 pm: | |
http://www.eenadu.net/archives/archive-21-12-2006/ district/districtshow1.asp?dis=guntur#12  |
2006
Kurra Bewarse
Username: 2006
Post Number: 521
Registered: 05-2006
Posted From: 24.13.121.6
| | Posted on Friday, December 22, 2006 - 2:46 pm: | |
http://www.eenadu.net/panelhtml.asp?qrystr=htm/pan el1.htm
eedini lagadapati ni kottinattu kottandi HYD lo padesi |
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