Kerala High Court upholds Centre bar on telecast of MediaOne news channel
Kochi(PTI): The Kerala High Court on Tuesday upheld the Centre's decision to bar telecast of Malayalam news channel MediaOne.
Justice N Nagaresh dismissed the plea of Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd -- which operates MediaOne -- challenging the central government's January 31 decision.
The court said that the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs to deny security clearance was based on the intelligence inputs received from various agencies.
The Centre, during the arguments on Monday, had contended that a security clearance once issued cannot continue forever.
The central government had previously told the court that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) denied security clearance to MediaOne over national security concerns based on intelligence inputs.
The channel, on the other hand, contended that MHA clearance was only required at the time for fresh permission/license and not at the time of renewal.
It had also contended that, according to the uplinking and downlinking guidelines, security clearance was only required at the time of application for fresh permission and not at the time of renewal of licence.
This was not the first time the channel has faced such a bar on its operation.
MediaOne, along with another Malayalam News channel, Asianet, was briefly suspended for 48 hours over their coverage of communal violence in Delhi in 2020, with the official orders saying they covered the violence in a manner that "highlighted the attack on places of worship and siding towards a particular community".
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
