Statutory underpinning media self-regulation needed: Tewari

The government favours self- regulation of media, but a need has been felt for "a model statutory underpinning the self-regulation framework", Union Minister Manish Tewari today told a consultative committee of the I&B ministry.
The committee discussed the relevance of the Leveson report in the Indian context.
Tewari said the Leveson report was being discussed so that the issues raised could be debated and discussed and the implications in the Indian milieu could be analysed.
"The government has always supported the self-regulation mechanism in the media domain, but of late, a need had been felt even among the stakeholders that a model statutory underpinning the self regulation framework may be looked at," Tewari told the committee.

A statement released by the I&B ministry said Tewari also told the panel that the Leveson Report was an example of a model that had been conceived in the British context after due deliberations and debate.
He said the endeavour would now be to also compare other similar models around the world and understand the implications and applications juxtaposed against the Indian context.

Speaking to reporters later, Tewari said he had "assured the consultative committee that the government has absolutely no intention of moving forward on regulation till that point in time, we do not have the broadest possible consensus within Parliament and stakeholders."

In a question related to cross-holding in media, Tewari said he told the committee that the issue was being looked at by TRAI.
The members who attended the meeting included Anup Kumar Saha, Sanjay Jaiswal, Shatrughan Sinha, Ramya Divya Spandana, Ahmad Saeed Malihabadi, Barun Mukherji, Bharat Kumar Raut, M P Achuthan, Mohammed Adeeb and Pyarimohan Mohapatra.