“Strengthen free speech and the requirement to be accountable and responsible. This is the way for the future,” said N. Ram, chairman of Kasturi & Sons Ltd., on Saturday.
He was delivering the 9 annual R.M. Seshadri Memorial Lecture, organised by the Rajaji Centre for Public Affairs, on the topic, ‘freedom of the press’.
Pointing out that the press faced a lot of difficulties, including economic issues, a few decades ago, he said, “In those days, however, there was less intolerance in the political space than there is today.”
Some examples he gave were: the ban on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses , criminalisation of M.F. Husain’s paintings, targeting of cartoonists, historians, journalists, attack on media offices, piling on of criminal defamation cases against journalists and blocking of texting services in the name of law and order.
However, the media too must be monitored, he said. “What we need is an independent internal news ombudsman in newspapers and broadcasting organisations,” he said.
Former civil servant B.S. Raghavan said the time had come for readers to form a media watch association.
“This will ensure an independent and external mechanism to check on the behaviour and conduct of the press,” he said.
At the function, Venkatakrishnan, son of R.M. Seshadri, spoke about his father and introduced the other speakers.
