Rapists’ Alleged Shield in the State Cabinet Intimidates the Press

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

People in Orissa have become such habituated with keeping mum in the prevalent environment of crime that the students and social activists – usually the most vocal in collective civil causes – were not even daring to raise voice against the negligence to the Pipili rape victim – battling for life under coma – till media coverage made it a matter worth sharp societal attention.

NOW the civil society stands in solidarity with the victim and she is receiving medical care at SCB Medical College, Cuttack, where a couple of days ago treatment was denied to her.

The Pipili Police Station in-charge, who had remained gravely negligent to the case of the victim has NOW been displaced by way of transfer and police has registered the case that then it was not looking at.

The family members of the victim, who were not daring to utter the names of the bruits that perpetrated the crime, lest they further torture, are NOW pointing their accusing fingers at them and unambiguously naming them even before the cameras.

NOW there is no aloofness in the public and many have started believing that police can no more succeed in covering up endeavor, if any.

But NOW the loudmouthed leader of the ruling party, the Agriculture Minister Pradip Maharathi has become very angry with the media. He has hurled alarming words at media persons and media organizations for having carried the versions of the victim’s family members, in a style akin to act of intimidation.

Whither the State?

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MUFP CONDEMNS TECHNO-STUDENTS’ GOONDAGIRI AND DEMANDS RETURN OF MEDIA EQUIPMENTS

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Media Unity for Freedom of Press (MUFP) in an emergency meeting convened today, 16 March 2011,under the Freedom Tree condemns the criminal attack on media persons by a gang of unruly students at the Centurion Institute of Technology, Paralakhemundi on Tuesday, 15 March 2011 while they were covering the student unrest inside the campus.

MUFP expresses its deep concrn over the fact that several Parlakhemundi-based journalists – ETV Reporter Sri Rama Govinda Acharya, OTV Reporter Sri Bidhan Chaudhury,ANI Reporter Santosh Patnaik, Kanak TV Reporter, Srikant Maharana, Naxatra TV reporter, Basudev Das have been injured in the attack.

The MUFP demands that the police and administration take immediate steps to ensure the cameras and other equipment snatched away from these journalists are returned to them within 24 hours failing which they should be compensated as per the market value of the goods stolen by the unruly students or the management of the Centurion Institute of Technology at the earliest.

The MUFP resolves to stand by the affected colleagues and draw the attention of the Editors’ Advisory Panel of the MUFP for further action at their end.

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MUFP CONDEMNS CRIMINAL ATTACK ON MEDIA PERSONS IN PARALAKHEMUNDI

Posted on March 15, 2011 by orissamattersbbsr

 

The MUFP, in the strongest possible terms, condemns the criminal attack on a group of media persons by an unruly gang of students of Centurion Institute of Technology, Paralakhemundion Tuesday, 15 March 2011 and demands immediate identification and arrest of all those found guilty. The unfortunate incident took place when local media persons were covering the student unrest inside the campus. Following the brutal attack ETV Reporter Sri Rama Govinda Acharya, OTV Reporter Sri Bidhan Chaudhury and ANI Reporter Santosh Patnaik, Kanak Tv Reporter, Srikant Maharana, Naxatra TV reporter, Basudev Das, Kamyab TV reporter Rupesh Sahoo and others have been injured and their cameras have been snatched away.

Students targeting media persons is a rather unfortunate development and we are reminded of a similar incident at the Ravenshaw college campus recently. The Odisha media has been very supportive of genuine student demands and has raised a number campus and education related issues across the state. MUFP, therefore, believes such criminal behaviour by a small group of students in Parlakhemundi will be condemned by the student community at large. The MUFP demands immediate arrest of all involved in the criminal attack on the media persons .The administration should immediately act and ensure that all the damaged camera and equipments be replaced while ensuring that the authorities would take preventive steps so that the media persons can discharge their duties freely.

Filed under: administration, law and order, media, Media Unity, news, orissa, politics, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Navin Raj Resembles the British Raj ! Unrelenting Police Torture Continues on the Press

Posted on September 18, 2010 by orissamattersbbsr

His father, a cancer patient, is bedridden in a local hospital known for administration of chemo-therapy.

He had come to his residence to collect medicine and food for his father.

Bhubaneswar Police, intelligent enough to know that he had come to his residence, was also in know of this. But it jumped on him when he was starting for the hospital, destroyed the medicines and the food specially cooked for his father, arrested him, produced him before a court that led him into a prison cell pending trial, leaving his father at the mercy of fate.

Had humanitarianism any value for administration in Orissa, the police could have arrested him, if the allegation, if any, against him warranted such action, after the medicines and food, so essential for the old man fighting cancer in the hospital bed, were duly delivered.

But, it was not in consonance with the police scheme. He was brutally arrested and in the name of law, debarred from rendering essential service to his critically ill and hospitalized father.

He is Bikash Swain, owner and publisher of a daily newspaper Suryaprava that maintains and materializes a policy to expose misrule.

During the days of our freedom movement, the police personnel working under the British were torturing Indians opposed to the foreigners by denying them natural justice and arresting them in concocted cases. In the administration of Navin Patnaik, to whom the foreigners are more important than the Oriyas, the police has the same stance and when media, in increasing numbers, come forward to expose the misrule that resembles foreign rule, media persons are being implicated in cooked up cases and tortured to ruin their credibility and to intimidate their community.

Media Unity for Freedom of Press has called upon the editors, publishers, promoters and owners of media organizations as well as media persons to an extended emergency meeting to discuss the disturbing development and the clamant issue of Press freedom.

Below is the call:

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Statement of MUFP on World Press Freedom Day

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Media Unity for Freedom of Press (MUFP) has issued the following statement:

As we observe the World Press Freedom Day today, we have reasons to both rejoice and feel concerned about the developments in Orissa.

2009 offered us compelling reasons to unite under one umbrella and fight all attempts at muzzling and terrorizing the media and media persons and that saw the birth of a unique and broad platform called the Media Unity For Freedom of Press. The MUFP has been able to bring together all sections of the media across the state on several issues that threatened media’s basic rights and mandate to investigate and report the truth. The sense of unity among media persons on such occasions has been truly encouraging and friends belonging to several journalist unions have joined our efforts in very large numbers.

At the same time we have great many reasons to feel concerned about the growing challenges – be it from the administration, corporate sector, mafias or people who enjoy political clout as well as money and muscle power.

The cases that we have taken up in our brief existence – from attacks on Laxman Choudhury, Jagannath Bastia and Amulya Pati among several others down to the latest bloody attack on media persons at the Silicon Institute of Technology – clearly demonstrate a trend of growing intolerance against the media. Friends working in Maoist zones as well as in areas where people’s movements are taking place are among the most vulnerable to repression, physical attacks and even death threats from powers that be. The state government and the district administration are slowly but definitely turning against the idea of a fiercely independent press and we have reasons to apprehend they would fall back on draconian measures whenever they are exposed to public scrutiny.

Our only shield against organized or institutional attacks on the freedom of press is our newly achieved unity which we must preserve and protect against all odds and at any cost. We need to reiterate our commitment to the idea of press freedom through press unity on the World Press Freedom Day and resolve to strengthen the MUFP as a body that is above all divisive and petty considerations and one that is wedded to the idea of defending the self-respect as well as basic and inalienable right of the media to report the truth, come what may.

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TAME THE LADY COLLECTOR, MR. CHIEF MINISTER, PLEASE

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak


Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

This write up is addressed to Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik, because he alone is capable of taking steps to tame the lady Collector of Nawarangpur district, Ms. Rupa Mishra, who is marked for manners not becoming of a Collector.

It is quite disquieting that she could ignore the decorum of her Office to intimidate a working journalist of premier daily ‘The Samaja’ reportedly as her photos are frequently not being published therein.

Sri Banka Bihari Bishoi, reporter of The Samaja had been to the Collectorate in professional pursuit and was in conversation with the District Welfare Officer Mukund Nihal when Ms Mishra barked at him as to why had he come to the Collector’s Office!

I am here to collect information for my paper, Bishoi replied. She asked him to get lost forthwith and as the shocked journalist was at a loss to understand, she went on hurling abusive words to intimidate him. This was in the presence of the Police Chief of the District!

The Samaja today has given this shocking news a double-column heading, putting forth the reason of her wrath with the words, “mora naama o photo Samajare kahinkin prakash paunahin?” meaning why my name and pictures are not appearing in Samaja?

Mr. Chief Minister, how sad!

Should reporters be hackled like this by a lady Collector of a district if her name and photos are not published to her pleasure by their newspapers?

Dear Chief Minister, The Samaja of today has cited names of Officials who are witness to this sordid conduct of the lady Collector. It has even reported that the district Superintendent of Police present on the spot had tried to prevail upon her not to be so rude to a working journalist on duty to which she refused to heed.

The lady Collector has no legal right to ask a working journalist not to discharge his duty in such filthy style and on such flimsy grounds. The government ought to understand this and officials being cited as witness, it ought to verify the truth from them and if corroborated, immediate steps should be taken to discipline the lady collector with a message to officials not to indulge in the luxury of intimidating the Press.

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Is RTI Affecting Press Freedom? Loud Thinks SCP on National Press Day

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Saswat Pattanayak

By OrissaMatters Bureau

National Press Day was officially observed in the auditorium of the Department of Information and Public Relations in the evening of November 16, with Minister of I&PR, Mr. Prafulla Samal in the chair.

Dr. Surya Narayan Mishra, Professor of Political Science, Utkal University, expressed deep dismay over failure of democracy to stay as the stable source of development of peoples and decline of space in mainstream media for the commons in various countries including India.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak and Ramesh Chandra Mohanty from the Fourth Estate expressed concern over attack on Press under applied democracy as is seen in Orissa in recent days with the Chief Minister dillydallying in taking action against police functionaries that have unambiguously cooked up false cases against reporters even as Sri Pattanayak gave a loud thinking to how shrewdly democracy is replaced with plutocracy by agents thereof in partnership with the owners of media, who attired as editors or assisted by yes-men donned as editors, take advantage of freedom of press and vet and steer information delivery process cleverly against the progressive forces, lest the hidden face of plutocracy comes out to public gaze. The situation in India is so anarchical that in the guise of freedom of information a law like the Right to Information Act has been promulgated that appears pro-people outwardly but inwardly is an instrument to do away with the conscience-keeper role of the working journalists to whom, by way of accreditation, democracy had originally equipped with the discretion to use professional wisdom in choosing what should be reportable in interest of the public. With the RTI, relevance of Press Accreditation is impaired and administration is being dragged into marketplace, which certainly is designed to develop informational anarchy. To sabotage democracy in the guise of democracy is the game that plutocracy plays and RTI as is being officially patronized needs to be reviewed in this light, said Pattanayak.

Dwelling on the precarious condition of journalists in Orissa, Pattanayak pointed out that the incumbent Information Minister, knows that his attempts to bring out a list of journalists working in Orissa is not being possible due to non-supply of acquaintance role by media organizations. But under the Press Council Act, it is the Information Department, which should have been in possession of details of the State’s journalist from the data of income and expenditure of every media house if the annual levy for the Council could have collected by the Government. It is not being done as the Government is not with the people, but with the traders that own the media organizations, he pointed out.

Prof. Biswaranjan, who after retiring from teaching Political Science in Orissa’s top ranking Government Colleges, has been working as the Editor of the daily Khabar since its inception, as the chief speaker of the evening, dwelt on the new face of media, which, to him, has evolved at par with applied democracy. Agreeing with SCP about overcast of plutocracy on political horizon of India, he went further to rue that the media having deviated from its avowed stand to stay as the sentinel of democracy, as a corollary thereto democratic process in the country has been hit hard by mobocracy. To save India from the disaster of electoral wisdom being swayed away by mobocracy, Press shall have to retrieve its role of politico-economic educator of the masses, he said. Earlier a small newspaper owner sans any invitation to speak had taken the microphone to assure the Minister in the Chair that the Press would stand with the Government. The idea was so ridiculous of the occasion that Prof. Biswaranjan, even though the paper he heads as editor is viewed as the mouthpiece of the Government because of super-chief-minister Pyarimohan Mohapatra’s shadow ownership, dismissed the idea and said, if Press would be pledged to Government there would be no Press at all.

Mr. Samal in his Presidential address assured to ensure that Press freedom is not tampered with through any official intervention. Identification of journalists active in Orissa, irrespective of where they work and with who, would soon be published in the official website and all the accredited journalists would be officially covered under insurance with provision of pension to all of them on crossing 60 in age, he declared. Departmental secretary R.N.Dash reiterated official commitment to Freedom of Press.

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