Appointment of Foreigner as Editor, The Hindu, challenged in Delhi HC -- Dr. Subramanian Swamy.
SWAMY AGAINST THE HINDU
POSTED BY SOMI DAS | MAY 10, 2013 IN CHEAT SHEET | 22 COMMENTS
Congress President Sonia Gandhi is not the only “non-Indian” who Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy is trying to get ousted from her post. He now wants the appointment of – to quote him – an “anti-nation Naxalite” declared null and void as the editor of an esteemed newspaper. And no, the person concerned doesn’t live in Jangalmahal or Gadchiroli district. His official address is Kasturi Building, Anna Salai, Chennai. If you still haven’t got it, the canker in Swamy’s eyes is the editor of The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan.
So, what’s Swamy’s bone of contention? It’s Varadarajan’s US citizenship. Subramanian Swamy has filed a plea in the Delhi High Court saying editors of news organisations in India “must be Indian citizens and residents of India” and not foreign citizens. The court in turn, on May 8, 2013, issued a notice to the Centre asking whether the citizenship of editors of publications in India should be a criteria for their appointment. The court has decided to hear the matter on July 24, 2013.
What does the rule book say? The Press And Registration of Books Act (PRB Act) 1867, which is a pre-Independence legislation for publications, states that a person who does not ordinarily reside in India would not be permitted to edit a newspaper. However, the Act doesn’t comment on the matter of citizenship. In 2011, the Cabinet approved the Press & Registration of Books and Publication Bill, which would replace the antiquated 1867 Act. According to Section 2(C) of the Bill, “an editor is a person, whether called editor, chief-editor, sub-editor or by whatever name called, who is a citizen of India and ordinarily resides in India, who controls the selection of the matter that is brought out in a publication”. The Bill, though, is pending in Parliament.
Why has Subramanian Swamy filed this petition? Speaking to Newslaundry, Subramanian Swamy said, “The Cable Act says that the editor of a news channel has to be an Indian citizen. The 2002 Cabinet decision on FDI in print media said that the editor of any print organisation receiving foreign funds should be an Indian. So, why should an Indian print organisation funded by Indians have an editor without an Indian citizenship?”
What is The Hindu’s stand? Former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu and Director of Kasturi & Sons Limited, publishers of The Hindu, N Ram over a long email commented, “The PRB Act does NOT stipulate that only Indian citizens can be the editor of a newspaper. The requirement is that the editor be ordinarily resident in India. Siddharth Varadarajan has been continuously resident in India since September 1995. We were fully aware of the requirements of the PRB Act and that in appointing Siddharth as the Editor of The Hindu we were in full compliance with the provisions of the Act”.
Should citizenship be seen as one of the credentials of an editor before appointment? According to Ram, “No, there is no need to take the citizenship of someone into account before appointing him or her as Editor. What is important is the editor’s commitment to the philosophy, values and ethos of the newspaper and his or her willingness and ability to uphold those values”.
Swamy disagreed and emphasised that newspapers play a vital role in forming public opinion and, therefore, citizenship of the editor should be taken into consideration. In a letter to the Press registrar dated June 6,2012 Swamy wrote, “An editor of a newspaper as part of the Fourth Estate is in a particularly important position to influence the democratic processes including elections in India. It will adversely impact national security and go against public interest if a foreigner is allowed to become editor of a newspaper like The Hindu”.
Is Swamy targeting Varadarajan in particular? According to N Ram, there have been other, well-known instances where publications have had editors with foreign citizenship – although he did not name any. He wrote, “I have no comment on why Dr Swamy raised this particular objection. We do what we think and know to be the right and legal thing”. Swamy on his part says that he has known Varadarajan for long and he is not targeting him in particular. He said that he is seeking more clarity in the press laws and the criteria to appoint editors. He also added that it is Varadarajan who is spreading rumours about Swamy seeking vendetta as Swamy is perceived to be “anti-Communist”.
Swamy’s repeated insistence and mentions of Varadarajan and his own perceived political leanings makes us wonder what Swamy has taken umbrage to in regard to Varadarajan’s eligibility as editor of an Indian newspaper. Is it his citizenship or his political ideology?
venkat • 9 hours ago −
Why question Dr Swamy's political leanings and ideology. He has raised a pertinent point. The very same news paper opposes FDI in print media clarity is required
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TheHobbit venkat • 4 hours ago
Without loss of generality, Dr Swamy is a powerful force that needs to be heard. But, I have to disagree here. If Varadharajan can do a good job, then questions over his nationality are pointless. I think Jonathan Shainin does a commendable job at Caravan as do many Indian Editors at media outlets that are worth their salt. The merit of the person should be questioned. His neutrality should be questioned. Not his citizenship.
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Vasista TheHobbit • 3 hours ago
Law must be framed as universally applicably. Case-by-case, person-by-person based judgement takes us to kingship and his courtroom
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TheHobbit Vasista • 2 hours ago
I'm trying to make a universally applicable point about establishing a meritocratic system.
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Sonam Agrawal • 9 hours ago
What does the author has to say about the questions raised by Dr Swamy, regarding formation of public opinion and its effects on foreign policy, etc.?
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Shankar • 4 hours ago
i'm in total agreement with swamy. if sid wants to become the editor, he should give up his US citizenship. he must show the public where his loyalties lie. and if you must know, things like this would never be tolerated in the US, the so called 'free country', where many of the jobs here would not even consider permanent residents.
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Vasista • 4 hours ago
Does any country in this world allow foreign nationals to be holding key positions in print and media. Everybody failing to read Swamy's intention. We must have a strong, nationalistic laws that govern key entities of our democracy and must clean up all the anti-nationalistic precedents everywhere. The main point Swamy is enlightening is this - You cannot have any strong legal action taken against foreign citizens with our existing Laws. So in order to stop them from fleeing or enjoying any sort of immunity after committing any unlawful acts and to bring them squarely under IPC, CrPC and have them legally accountable - the 'citizenship' is mandatory !
I'm no blind follower of Swamy. neither may agree to all of his, but a clarity and precedent on this from the judiciary will be looked ahead and much appreciated !
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Constructive Inquiry • 2 hours ago
Somi Ji, Thanks for bringing this issue on the center stage for debate for constructive inquiry.
There are certain things which need to be understood before commenting or judging the intentions of both the parties (Mr Swamy’s and The Hindu) in the above mentioned case.
The influx of FDI in media and its after wards affect, both in short term and long term keeping in view of maintaining editorial freedom and sustainability of Media outlet in the Indian context is must be a issue of main stream media house.
The Information & Broadcast Ministry need to be questioned and Government proactively come forward to insure timely clarity in such issues.
Now, let’s understand the Mr Swamy's Intention, which are based on the short term and long term effect which Editorial freedom of News Papers in India. The issue can be split into sub issues.
1: Why ‘The Hindu’? : The famous, renowned news paper, so it can give him a fair chance to collect factual information and subsequently challenging ‘The Hindu’ and come up with case and so on and so forth. Let assume that Mr Swamy could have filled case against 'Dainaik Jagran', I expect no one is going to give any emphasis. Although, one can carefully analyse and observe the growth story of Jagran group and end up encountering with one of the India's biggest 'live' case of crony capitalism. The so called media wathdog can’t even run a single story about the continuous presence of such irregularities in Jagran group media.
I am happy that the case is against ‘The Hindu’ because still ‘The Hindu’ consider to be a fair and freely on the relative scale with the counter running commercial media outlet.
It is relatively easy to understand that Mr Swamy is doing what he can do best. Isn’t? ‘The Hindu’ will also do, what they can do to uphold the true spirit of values and ethos coupled with freedom of expression under the prevailing PRB act. But what if government decided to come up with new act and delaying it with conscious efforts? This is because Indian government is running on ‘Trust deficit’.
2: The FDI Dilemma: The Indian Government has recently announced the raising of limits on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the broadcast distribution sector to 74 percent. This is a significant step that will allow majority foreign interest in cable companies, Direct To Home (DTH) companies and other broadcast distribution entities.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs’ (CCEA) approval of the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion’s (DIPP) proposal for review of the policy on FDI in the broadcasting sector is a favourable sign at a time when the industry requires huge doses of capital to fund its digitization. Just do a bit of thoughtful analysis seeing penetration of Telecom Services’ in Indian society. I bet we can’t assume that such success story of telecom can also be witnessed in media arena. The underlying assumption while coming up with FDI in broadcast is to increase the penetration level and ensuring the information penetration to the grass roots. But what happened is complete opposite as the debate over the ‘command and control’ of Reliance group in certain media outlet is still not all set. This is good step ensuring the importance of issue at highest level.
We can witness the familiar jargon on the electronics media as 'National Media'. We won’t find any media group or associated prominent journalist, sitting in New Delhi's or some other location can challenge the perception based on
rational understanding that the FDI influx won’t have any adverse effect on the editorial freedom. There are visible signs of trade offs between ‘The Management approach’ and ‘The Editorial approach’ for successful running a news paper. Since, In India, main stream media has been controlled by some old school of thought, so lets get it go and only those who can actually think beyond the Ideological barrier can understood the true essence.
3: PRB Act: The Press and Registration of Books Act (PRB Act) 1867, which is a pre-Independence legislation for publications is prevailing act. Apart from this act, one can easily understand the long list of colonial rules and regulations
that are still relevant and which by their slightest of change have lost any significant in the 21st century in the making of modern India. Let’s debate the upcoming act, gives suggestion and make this happened so to with hold accountability of the Government and other active stakeholder for benefit of people.
4: Ideology vs Idea: Being a student, I tried not to mix Ideology with Idea and this must be the conscious efforts for any independent voice media group with first at the individual level. I do and it’s time for all of us to understand it. Every time, we can’t see all this from the frame of Ideology and dilute the very true essence of vibrant democracy.
Let’s see what will be the outcome of hearing on 24th July 2013, but one thing is sure that Newslaundry is doing a wonderful job for proactive stakeholder like me.
Lets constructive Inquiry be continued….
-Harsh
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Abhijith Verma • 5 hours ago
Swamy is very right. The PRB Act is made on 1867, when there was no concept of citizenship. So many SC rulings say editor should be a person who should be under CrPC and IPC. That means he should be an Indian citizen. The Hindu and N ram talks loud on others illegalities and when they are caught with sheer violation, they are now talking nonsense or like innocent kids. Why Siddharth Varadarajan maintains his US citizenship? Why can't he apply for Indian citizenship? Reason is simple - he wanted to enjoy the benefits of US citizenship. As he exhibits his Naxal-Left-Secular-dalit - Minority cards, the so called pseudo secularists keep silence. As this case involves media houses and editors, so many politicians are keeping quiet as they want favours from media houses. This is the same case like when Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi caught and those who wanted to show their face in NDTV kept criminal silence. I admire Subramanian Swamy's courage and will to take on the wrong doings in dubious media world of India. Hope one day he would take on the illegal private treaties of big media houses with corporate world, which is a sheer violation of SEBI and RBI norms. I wish all success to Swamy's venture in cleaning the dirt in media houses
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Sanatan Dharmi • 9 hours ago
Does anyone, except Internet hindutva khaki chaddis on the Internet who are not known to be the sharpest knives in the drawer, take Swami seriously?
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Abhudai Singh Sanatan Dharmi • 7 hours ago
Wait for the S.C opinion , no point in sounding like the Italian Roma , jesuit. BTW lot many Indians hold him in quite high regards.I don't know if u'd recall one of our EX Election Commissioners of India,T.N Seshan. Well this man wud hold him as his guru due to his sheer brilliant academic credentials, unlike people who fake their qualifications at the Harvard..Would you want to believe who is being referred here.
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Prasad Abhudai Singh • 6 hours ago
Well,no one is against Swamy in person. Its just against his anti-secular ideas. It should not be forgotten that, Swamy himself is EXTREMELY pro-American (and pro-Israeli), perhaps even America's puppet in India. Then why is he so against Varadarajan's American citizenship inspite of him being very much anti-imperialist?
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Abhijith Verma Prasad • 5 hours ago
what is the problem in pro-american, while people took proud on pro-LTTE, pro-Jihadi. Siddharth should go and Ram should be booked for illegal activity. The Hindu newspaper should obey Indian laws. They only obey the dictums of dravidain parties, otherwise they know their bones should be broken.
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Prasad Abhijith Verma • 5 hours ago
Haha! What is the problem in being pro-American? I think you have been brainwashed by the mainstream media! Most of the problems in this world are due to the imperialist policies of America and its puppets in the world. The economic crisis, wars, hunger, poverty, everything is the creation of the Zionist entity.
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Abhijith Verma Sanatan Dharmi • 4 hours ago
you may take sibal,manish tewari, digvijay and Rashid Alwi seriously...or the Delhi Imaam who never cared to appear in Court for the past 25 years of summoning.
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One • 5 hours ago
Let's consider two aspects. First, is editorship of a big newspaper
critical for democracy and nation? Yes, no one should doubt that.
Second, citizenship means what? Among other things, it implies you have
pledged your primary allegiance to the country of which you are a
citizen. Considering these two aspects, we cannot have a person whose
loyalty is to another country for a post so crucial for our country.
Someone
might say, until something anti-national is done by a person, we should
not disallow him or her to be an editor. The problem is how do we find
out anti-national activities. In this information and cerebral era, it
is not that straight forward. Anti-national activities can be done like a
slow poisoning - by publication, suppression, editing of series of news
articles which fall in grey area of anti-national news or differences
of opinions. Rarely, one will publish articles which in-your-face are
anti-national. Intelligent work is done slowly and in subtle manner. So
we should select those who are committed to our country; citizenship is
one crucial flag of this. Citizenship doesn't guarantee
absence of anti-national intentions or acts, but at least it reduces the
chances.
Just ask, can we allow a citizen of another country
which is hostile to our country to be an editor here? We should not,
even if he or she has not done any anti-national activity. It's like we
cannot allow foreigner to be in military here. Military is in physical
space, Media is in cerebral space. I think for crucial posts and roles,
we should allow only Indian citizens. Not only in press, in other
important sphere too.
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Prasad One • 5 hours ago
Listen to or read Varadarajan and you will immediately find that he is anti-imperialist and anti-American inspite of his citizenship. Swamy on the other hand is openly pro-American. So what is more important here-a clear ideology or citizenship? Swamy is OK with the foreign MNCs exploit the land belonging to poor tribals and reap profits but he is not ready to accept an Indian to be editor just because he has some other citizenship? What about the corporate media like CNN-IBN, CNBC-TV18, Bloomberg etc. who are openly owned and controlled by the Zionist Americans and spreading their own propaganda in India? Also news papers like Dainik Jagran who has directors on the board who are real Americans? Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
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Vasista Prasad • 4 hours ago
If you go by what all people say in front of rolling camera, you would never have any anti nationalistic events in this country !
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Prasad Vasista • 3 hours ago
LOL! You need to read more of P. Sainath. He can be called the Noam Chomsky of India.
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Abhijith Verma Prasad • 4 hours ago
don't be slave or blind fan of sid varadarajan. if you know him, tell him to apply for Indian citizenship...all problems solved. For people like you terrorist jehadi Osama is Osma Bin Laden ji....ask siddharth to throw away his US citzenship and take our Indian citizenship...he won't do..becoz he want to enjoy the benfits of US citizenship...He is foolings Buddhus like you
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Prasad Abhijith Verma • 3 hours ago
Haha. You guys always have the same hate story. Why don't you give a sensible reply to the comments I made? Do you think the foreign citizenship of the editor of a newspaper is more destructive than the direct foreign ownership of multiple mainstream TV news channels and news papers? You say CNN owned CNN_IBN gives you real news and The Hindu's news are manipulated because it has an editor with other citizenship although he has live in India since last 20 odd years? I am sorry, but you are the BUDDHU here.
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hardcorenews Abhijith Verma • 3 hours ago
guys you are the same ppl who if Modi would get an american visa would claim it as a victory. Take a chill pill. Mark Tully was not an Indian but he understood India. Ibn Batuta and many other foreign account writer and historians provided fresh perspective to Indian history and made India a global story. so, please don't go after someone's citizenship. He might have applied for it and would soon get it.
http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/05/swamy-against-the-hindu/