EC may shut cable TV news ahead of elections in J&K

Putting in place a district-level mechanism to monitor the paid news, Election Commission of India is likely to close down the news and current affairs operations of all cable television networks in Jammu and Kashmir ahead of the coming Lok Sabha elections for not having mandate for such programme.

“Since the private cable television networks are not registered with the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and they have no mandate to carry news and current affairs programmes under the 1995 law, these cannot be allowed to operate during the election process. It’s not possible for the Commission to regulate paid news on the unauthorised news sources”, a senior EC functionary said.

The EC officials, who concluded their first visit to J&K on 16 January, said that a comprehensive mechanism was being introduced for the first time to control paid news on the official electronic media, Doordarshan and All India Radio, besides all satellite news channels and print media. The regulators were also working on a plan to control election related data on the social networking domains like Facebook and Twitter.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/cable-news/item/4086-ec-may-shut-cable-tv-news-ahead-of-elections-in-j-k.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/cable-news/item/4086-ec-may-shut-cable-tv-news-ahead-of-elections-in-j-k.html