Notice to Manipuri Talk Show Under New Digital Media Laws Revoked

The Manipur government on Tuesday night canceled the notice issued to a current affairs talk show under the new digital media rules after the Center appeared to berate the state government for exercising powers that had not been granted to it, they said. people aware of events.

Read also | Manipur Talk Show Gets Notice Under New Digital Media Laws

The Imphal West district magistrate had issued the notice under a new set of rules notified by the Center on February 25, raising concerns that local officials could use the new provisions against their critics.

The Union’s information and technology minister, Prakash Javadekar, responded to this concern. “The mechanism is mostly self-regulating and only in very serious cases can they complain to the ministry,” he told the Hindustan Times.

Javadekar said the rules were “very clear that a DM does not have the power to issue such a notice.”

The minister’s claim came shortly after Amit Khare, secretary of the Union’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, sent an energetic letter to Manipur’s chief secretary asking him to withdraw the notification sent to the ‘Khanasi Neinasi’ talk show, which means’ Let’s Talk in Manipuri.

Khare told Chief Secretary Rajesh Kumar that the digital media rules had not delegated the powers to ensure compliance to state governments, police commissioners or DMs.

The controversy erupted when a notice was sent to the publisher or broker of ‘Khanasi Neinasi’ under the Information Technology Rules (Guidelines for brokers and Digital Media Code of Ethics), 2021, which were notified on February 25. The advisory was issued March 1 by the Imphal West District DM and served Tuesday morning. “It has come to the notification of the undersigned that you are providing online services on news and current affairs on the social media platform,” the notice read, which further instructed the publisher / broker to “provide all relevant documents that guarantee compliance with the provisions “of the new rules, failing that, he warned,” the steps deemed appropriate will be initiated without prior notice.

This was probably the first instance in the country of such action against a digital news platform.

Significantly, the program is hosted on the Facebook page of Kishorechandra Wangkhem, a journalist from Imphal, against whom the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has slapped several cases, as well as imprisoned three times. In reaction to the ad, Kishorechandra told HT: “We have presented only four or five shows. The latest program aired on February 28 and was titled ‘Media Under Siege: Are There Journalists Walking a Tightrope?’ ”. Kishorechandra, also an associate editor at Frontier Manipur, Kishorechandra spoke to HT by phone from Imphal.

Frontier Manipur works in collaboration with a news portal called Seven Salai and uses the latter’s infrastructure. Paojel Chaoba is the editor and CEO of Frontier Manipur.

In January, Chaoba, along with Frontier Manipur editor-in-chief Dhiren Sadokpam, was detained for more than 24 hours on the basis of an FIR submitted by a police officer on an opinion piece titled ‘Revolutionary Journey in a Mess’ .