Emergency was Jallianwala Bagh of free India: Akbar
Bengaluru, June 26: Recalling the "horrors" of the era, Minister of State for External Affair M.J. Akbar on Tuesday said the 21-month Emergency from June 25, 1975 to March 21, 1977 was the Jallianwala Bagh of free India.
"Emergency was the Jallianwala Bagh of free India. All that Indians wanted in June 1975 was freedom and what they got was a massacre of democracy," the journalist-turned-politician told reporters at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office here.
To ensure that the period of Emergency, which saw the arrests of several political activists and leaders of the country, does not repeat in the future, there was a need to be vigilant, he said.
"Jails that were meant for criminals turned into homes for leaders, activists and several other people of India, whose only sin was asking for a free country. To ensure that the event never repeats again, we must be vigilant," Akbar said.
The country must not forget the dark and dangerous 21 months when Emergency was imposed 43 years ago and India's freedom was destroyed, he stressed.
"Indians then did not only lose their freedom, but also lost their right to live. They lived in complete fear and the silence of censorship. It was a time when authoritarianism and dictatorship was imposed upon the country," he added.
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Union government assumes full control over TV ratings, TRAI role curtailed: Report
New Delhi: The Union government has assumed full control over television audience measurement, removing the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from oversight of the ratings system that underpins the country’s ₹36,000 crore television advertising market, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The report in Mint said the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) now has exclusive authority over the framework governing how television ratings are measured and regulated. TRAI had been entrusted with oversight of TV ratings in 2012 during the UPA government’s tenure. TRAI is no longer mentioned in the relevant policy document, effectively vesting sole authority in the MIB.
The report said TRAI will continue to regulate other aspects of broadcasting, including channel pricing, advertising caps, interconnection and distribution norms, service quality and compliance standards. Its role in determining how ratings agencies track viewing behaviour has been withdrawn.
Television Rating Points (TRPs), which reflect viewership patterns, guide advertisers in deciding where to allocate spending across channels and time slots.
A government source quoted in the report said the ministry could modify TRAI’s decisions even when the regulator oversaw broadcasting.
A former CEO of Prasar Bharati told the newspaper that the MIB has historically regulated rating agencies through licensing and guidelines, and by holding them accountable under existing norms.
During its tenure overseeing ratings, TRAI had taken decisions affecting the broadcast sector, which included capping advertising time at 12 minutes per hour following complaints about excessive commercial breaks and it now remains unclear how these matters will be addressed under the revised arrangement.
Satya N. Gupta, former principal advisor at TRAI, was quoted as saying that merging regulatory functions with policy oversight and removing an independent regulator from the process was a retrograde step.
TRAI’s involvement in broadcasting had earlier attracted criticism as well. In 2012, its consultation paper on quantitative limits on television advertising was viewed by some as overlapping with the Advertising Standards Council of India’s code. Subsequent recommendations covering television audience measurement, ownership of news channels and issues such as paid news had also raised concerns among sections of the industry.
Television ratings have faced scrutiny in recent years, including during the controversy involving the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), where officials of the ratings body were prosecuted over allegations of manipulation of viewership data.
