Media Regulations :- A Conundrum for India

Vikash Kumar
Media as we all know is often Touted as 4th Pillar of Democracy
but in the recent months or year it is losing its Prime Position.
The industry which is a source of informations and news for
large masses is in deep trouble and is making headlines of itself
amongst 1.2 billion Indians. It is on a Wrong path now-a-days it
seems. It is Lacking in Transparency, Secularism, and is without
its own stand. The Million dollars industry is touching an all
time low standard in terms of Content, Coverage, Topics, and
Debate and is Trending on Twitter , Topping the Charts in terms
of filthy language usage, biasness, Non-secularism, vulgarity,
obscenity etc.
Different Mode of Media is regulated differently and separately
in India. Print Media is regulated by Press Council of India, a
statutory self-regulation agency though its head is appointed by
Govt. For TV News, The News Broadcasting Standards
Authority, a self-regulatory body is there. But for Over the Top
or OTT platforms/services , till date there exists no Independent
regulating body though the GoI brought OTT platforms under
its Information & Broadcasting Ministry’s grasp through a
gazette notification on November 9th , 2020. Regulations for
Media are existing from decades especially for Print and TV
Media in our nation.
The Constitution of India, the supreme law of the land,
guarantees freedom of speech and expression under article 19,
which deals with “protection of certain rights regarding
freedom of speech” etc. Freedom of press is not expressly and
clearly protected by Indian legal system but it is impliedly
protected under article 19 (1) (a) of the constitution, which
states – all citizens have the right to freedom of speech and
expression. Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in Romesh Thappar
vs State of Madras observed that Freedom of press lay at the
foundation of all democratic organizations. However, Freedom
of Press is also not absolute. It can be restricted in different
circumstances arising from time to time one of those is the
publication of a content which harms or is a perceived to harm
and threat the sovereignty and integrity of India.
Regulation of Media is also very essential for a democratic
nation in order to maintain decency, morality, peace, harmony
in the society. The Example of recent TRP SCAM by Republic
Media Network and the bad prism through which the coverage
was drawn and telecast against tablighi jamaat members
regarding spread of COVID-19 by them is an insight in this
regard. Totally Free Media can harm or fatally damage the
democratic infrastructure of countries and especially their
governments(mainly Elected ones). The instance of OTT
platforms is an eye opener in this regard which (OTT platforms)
promoted vulgarity, pornographic content, obscenity, gender
violence , showed various religions in bad instinct when it was
free from regulation boundaries. In global context, France
which is facing crisis due to the overwhelmingly provided
priority to freedom of speech and expression instead of a
balance between religious aspects and the limitation of
freedom of speech and expression. Which resulted in
publication of cartoon caricatures of Prophet Mohammed by
satirical Weekly French Magazine Charlie Hebdo, which is
considered blasphemous and expressly prohibited in Islam. This
incident further led to the beheading of a teacher and a bishop.
But , Current I&B minister of India, Prakash Javadekar in a
recent interview said that we are not in favour of stringent and
draconian media regulations but we are looking at ways to
improve regulatory sytems in media.
In my opinion, regulations deserve to be placed on Media as
media without regulations can lead to disastrous scenarios.
Freedom is essential but complete and absolute freedom paves
way for lags and collapse of democratic setup. Decent,
Democratic, media and citizen friendly regulations are need of
the hour. The whole media isn’t facing the ire of audience and
is not requiring urgent reforms but still some divisons of it
require it badly and on War footing level.i

1. Drishti IAS , 2. The Indian Express