Prasar Bharati ties up with 'Hindusthan Samachar' for news agency; HERE'S HOW LEFTISTS REACT

New Delhi, Mar 1: Quite recently, Prasar Bharati, that is responsible for the content & reports on Doordarshan and All-India Radio, has signed an exclusive contract with Hindusthan Samachar. The decision came two years after Prasar Bharati cancelled its subscription with the Press Trust of India (PTI), that is reputed as India’s largest and oldest professional news agency.

 

 

 

As per reports, Hindusthan Samachar has been providing its wire services to Prasar Bharati free of cost since 2017 on an “evaluation basis”. However, the two parties entered into a formal agreement in which Prasar Bharati will pay nearly Rs. 7.7 Crore to Hindusthan Samachar for a period of two years ending in March 2025. The contract says that Hindusthan Samachar will have to provide at least 100 news stories every day to Prasar Bharati, including a minimum of 10 national news stories and 40 local stories in regional languages.

 

According to a Prasar Bharati official, the contract for Hindusthan Samachar was merely a renewal since they were already “associated with the ministry since 2020”. Prasar Bharati needed a “versatile news wire that could provide information in more than two to three languages” and this was “the only reason PTI was replaced”. Hindusthan Samachar operates in 11 languages, including Assamese, Odia and Nepali.

 

 

 

 

 

Hindusthan Samachar, a multi-lingual news agency, was founded in 1948 by Shivram Shankar Apte, a senior RSS pracharak and co-founder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad along with RSS ideologue M.S. Golwalkar. After the Narendra Modi government’s encounters with news agencies PTI and United News of India (UNI) over the last few years, the decision to sign an exclusive contract with Hindusthan Samachar has taken place.

  

 

 

The new has spiked a row from opposition, particularly, CPI(M) leaders criticizing the move.

  

CPM state secretary M V Govindan said during the Kozhikode leg of the People's Resistance March on Feb 26, "By choosing Hindustan Samachar to offer news service to Prasar Bharati, the Modi government is now officially implementing its policy of saffronization." He further said, "The attempt is to inject communal poison in the minds of the people. Hindustan Samachar, which was set up under the leadership of the RSS ideologue and its second Sarsanghchalak, Golwalkar, had been brought in to replace Press Trust of India (PTI). This way the power to decide the kind of news that would be relayed through the DD and AIR would go into the hands of the RSS."

 

 

 

 

 

The Print quoted Congress leader and former Information & Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari saying that, “It was a known fact around 2017 that PTI’s services would be terminated, and every other reason given is an excuse. The fundamental question is how can a public broadcaster whose autonomy was sought to be ensured by an act of the Parliament take content from a news agency which has a clear and overt ideological bias? Irrespective of which side the ideology leans on.”

 

Thomas Issac, who is a senior Member of Communist Party of India (Marxist) took it to Twitter saying that "Hindustan Samachar, controlled by RSS replaces PTI as news agency for Doordarshan and AIR. An exclusive contract has been signed for this purpose by Prasar Bharati with Hindustan Samachar. Instead of granting autonomy to Prasar Bharati GoI has decided to bring it under RSS heel."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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