Petition Delivery to I&B Ministry, Thanks to You

Dear supporters,

Thanks to the 39,000+ of you who signed my petition, on Thursday 10th November, we were able to meet and deliver our petition to Vikram Sahay, IAS, Joint. Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. And guess what, he offered his generous support to our cause. 

Mr. Sahay enlightened us about a couple of initiatives that the Ministry is already taking to curb the communal hate being spread by sections of the media.

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We were told that the Ministry

has sent out circulars to all 200 channels 
Is working out a code of conduct or social media regulations for live panel news debates.
has a dedicated 2-member team for daily monitoring of 10 primetime panel discussions to flag objectionable, derogatory content, if any. 
There is also the Electronic Media Monitoring center (EMMC) under the Government of India which voluntarily discloses any violation of Law that is reported in their website as well. 

Mr. Sahay also shared with us a revised handbook called “Statutory Mechanism for Grievance Redressal of television content”

THE NEXT STEP

As the Joint Secretary mentioned, the law doesn't permit the Ministry to enforce direct fines on media for spreading fake news. Therefore our next step will be to approach the News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA), which is in a position to impose fines on errant news channels. Remember how News18 was fined Rs 50,000 for dubbing Hijab supporters as Al Qaeda supporters?

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
We invite all 39,000 signatories including you to join us in individually writing to the NBDSA authority@nbanewdelhi.com urging them to take action. When NBDSA receives not just one email but 39,000 emails all saying the same thing, it will sit up and consider our request. Please copy-paste the content shared below in the email you send. Hoping all of you participate. United we are stronger.

Thank you,
Seema and Shilpashree

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Email id:  authority@nbanewdelhi.com
Subject of email: Impose higher fines on channels that fail to mute the hate on-air

Text for email

Dear NBDSA,
Thank you for taking action by recently imposing a fine on a news channel that was promoting hate on air during its coverage of the hijab case in Karnataka. As a citizen who values communal harmony, I urge you to take similar action against other channels that routinely breach the limits of decency and allow anchors and guests to make communal remarks on air. I request you to impose steep penalties of Rs 1 lakh minimum for every instance of a channel failing to mute the hate on air. I am one of the 40,000 people who signed this petition to you: Change.org/MuteTheHate.

Looking forward to timely action and a favourable response.

Thank you in advance for ensuring hate-free news media.