India’s oldest Socialist Weekly!
Editor: Dr. G.G. Parikh | Associate Editor: Neeraj Jain | Managing Editor: Guddi
The NAJ, DUJ, and APWJF express their concern that the proposed bill represents a significant step towards expanding undeclared censorship. Also: “Liberticidal Laws Have Tightened Government Control Over the Media Narrative in India” – RSF’s Célia Mercier.
Since his death on December 30, tributes have been pouring in for John Pilger, an Australian journalist who gave voice to the voiceless and had a talent for putting human tragedies into a political context.
In 2023, India hit a new low in press freedom, with the Central government signalling zero tolerance for a free and vibrant media.
Unions also call for law to protect journalists from arbitrary arrests and malicious prosecution, emphasising that journalists should not be treated as terrorists. Also: ‘Assault on NewsClick Marks the Lowest Point for Media Freedom in India Since Emergency’.
October 3, 2023 will go down in history for the biggest crackdown on Indian journalism by the Indian state. Also: Journalists Organisations Express Outrage; Journalists, Artists and Academics Worldwide Slam NewsClick Raids; ‘NewsClick: Lessons from the Kashmir Template’; ‘NewsClick Case: If Modi Govt is Really Serious About ‘Terror Financing’, Why Hasn’t It Rung the US, China and FATF?’; NewsClick Case: ‘Never Received Funds From a Foreign Govt’, Says Neville Roy Singham’s Company.
‘Raiding’ an entire media organisation and snatching the electronic devices of journalists without due process is a bad omen for a free press but a worse signal for the continuation of democracy.
In 1926, Gandhi had given a call for boycott of newspapers spreading hate: “India would lose nothing if 90 per cent of the papers were to cease today,” Gandhi had said then; Also: “When Journalism Becomes the Flagbearer of Hate, Can the Resistance to It Be Anything but Political?”
“Gandhian Institutions Under Attack! Sarva Sewa Sangh Campus, in Rajghat, Varanasi, Bulldozed!”; Also: “NAPM Condemns the Vindictive Targeting of Progressive Media Houses, Including NewsClick”.
One after another, journalists in Kerala are being booked for just doing their job, which the government sees as doing ‘anti-government’ stories, much like the government at the Centre.
We celebrate World Press Freedom Day in May as a reminder that the role of news organizations is to speak truth to power. It’s an occasion to remember three people who exemplify the need to speak the truth: Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks; and Chelsea Manning.
Janata Weekly is India’s oldest independent socialist weekly.
Ever since its founding in 1946, Janata has voiced its principled dissent against all conduct and practice that is detrimental to the cherished values of nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism, while upholding the integrity and the ethical norms of healthy journalism. For more than seventy years now, week after week, it has continued to analyse the changes taking place in the country and the world from a socialist standpoint, and thus promote the spread of socialist ideology in the country.
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