EMFA urges Focus NE management to reinstate sacked employees

Electronic Media Forum Assam (EMFA) today urged the management of Focus NE, a local multilingual satellite news channel, to reinstate all the media employees sacked 'arbitrarily' under the 'cut-cost' formula recently.
The EMFA in a joint statement stated, "It is understood that over 40 television journalists and other employees of Focus NE, earlier known as NETV, were either sacked or forced to resign as the management wanted to reduce the running expenditure of the media outlet."
The affected journalists and their well wishers in the media fraternity demonstrated today in front of the news channel office in Guwahati protesting its action, said EMFA working president Parag Moni Aditya and secretary Bimal Ghosh.

The Journalists' Forum Assam (JFA) in a statement appealed to the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry to frame guidelines for all news channels (both free-to-air and payable) safeguarding the job security of media employees.
JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria demanded a statutory wage board for regular pay hike and other due benefits for the television media employees across the country like their counterparts in the newspaper and news agencies of the country.
They also emphasised on reconstituting at the earliest the present Press Council as the Media Council of India with the inclusion of the electronic media.