Government curtailing freedom of press; Urdu media bear the maximum brunt

Generally, the newspapers survive on government advertisements. 75% of the revenue of most of the newspapers comes from government advertisements. A sudden surge in advertisement revenue has been witnessed during the past few years in some newspapers, news channels and digital platforms.

Owner of the newspaper plays a role. If he is pro-government or close to the government he is likely to get government advertisements in abundance, whereas one who questions the government is denied advertisement revenue.

In this video, Cobra Post presents Scholar Prateek Sibal’s report which proves how government curtails the freedom of the press by cutting off the revenue thus discouraging media houses from asking questions to the government.

The report says there has been an increase of 400 to 500 pc government advertisements in RSS run media while Urdu newspapers have seen a drop of 50 pc in government advertisement.

Mr Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Managing Editor of Siasat daily, the second largest Urdu newspaper according to ABC, says that during 2006-7 revenue of Siasat was 17 lakh. And now, after 11 years, in 2017 its revenue is 10 lakh. Taking inflation and other factors into consideration, the revenue should have been nearly 40 lakh. Exposing the discrimination meted out to Urdu newspapers he says on 2nd June on the occasion of Telangana Formation day, an advertisement revenue of 60 crores was released; of which only 15 lakh was given to Urdu newspapers while advertisements of 15 Cr were given to Hindi newspapers. While the fact is Hindi has no base in Telangana.

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