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Freedom of Information Bill ready: Jaitley

Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley today said the drafting of the Freedom of Information Bill was in its final stages and was expected to be introduced in the budget session of Parliament.

Inaugurating the Third National Conference of Regional Newsmedia in New Delhi, Jaitley said an open society and a liberal democracy could function only if there was complete transparency and this legislation was a step in that direction.

While assuring the small and regional newspapers that he was aware of their problems, the minister said the regional media had in fact been able to cope better with the onslaught of multimedia than the national press being better equipped because of its character and reach.

He said the government would be willing to consider any positive suggestions for helping the small and regional news media to cope with the changes taking place in technology.

Organised by the Indian Society for Advancement of Regional News media (INSAR Newsmedia), the inauguration of the two-day meet was presided over by guest of honour and former governor Bhishma Narain Singh.

Jaitley said that the relationship between the government and the media was not adversarial and the latter had every right to raise its voice against injustice and point out flaws in the working of the executive.

The minister admitted that the entry of television and the Internet had affected the newspapers and particularly the smaller newspapers to the extent that many advertisers had shifted their advertisements to the electronic media. It was therefore necessary to find ways to improve the financial viability of small newspapers.

At the same time, he said newspapers must change their strategy and concentrate more on features and investigative articles since most readers had already seen the news of the day on the electronic media. In India, he said the voices of prophets of doom that newspapers would close with the coming in of multimedia had proved false, perhaps because only 29 per cent of the population owned television sets and only seven per cent of them had colour sets which could also receive satellite and cable transmissions.

The conference will focus on the responsibility of the regional media vis-a-vis socio-economic transformation, travel and tourism, government policies, prospects of Indian industry and agriculture, and new trends and technologies.

The valedictory tomorrow is expected to be addressed by Vasundhara Raje and Dhananjay Kumar, ministers of state for small-scale industry and finance respectively.

UNI

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