Prasar Bharati Chief Executive Officer Jawahar Sircar has once again written to the Information & Broadcasting Ministry protesting the manner in which the public broadcaster had little say in its own matters; stating that it can be held responsible only if it monitors the News Division.
The latest missive was sent on August 8 as word spread of DD News Director General S. M. Khan being placed on “compulsory wait’’. In this letter, Mr. Sircar drew attention to several representations received from the Director Generals of News of Akashwani and Doordarshan “after the last round of transfers that was done recently without the minimum modicum of consultations with the News Units working in Prasar Bharati’’.
According to Mr. Sircar, he has made several suggestions in the past for posting and transfer of Indian Information Service (IIS) officers in the News Divisions of Akashwani and Doordarshan but to little avail. The issue had also been flagged in the letter he had sent to the Ministry in the wake of the controversy over the “edited’’ version of the interview of Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on April 27.
His suggestion is that the Ministry bifurcate the work of IIS officers on a pro-rata basis of 60:40. “Then postings of IIS officers to PB could be decided by the Prasar Bharati Board and orders issued only after informing the Ministry’’. Also, he has made out a case for the Ministry sharing career details of the officers with Prasar Bharati “so we do not land in issues, such as the deliberately edited interview of Shri Narendra Modi on the 27th of April, which created such controversy’’.
