First NEC meeting of the Indian Journalist Union held in Tripura
The first National Executive Meeting of the National Journalists Union after the reconstitution held during the 10th Plenary Meeting was held on 11th June 2023 in the Conference Hall of Agartala Press Club at Agartala.
It was presided by its president Geetartha Pathak and inaugurated by Tinku Roy Sports, Youth and Labour Minister and attended by Deepak Mazumdar, Mayor of Agartala.
Members present in the meeting were:- President: Geetartha Pathak, Vice President: B D Nizami, Secretary General- Sabina Inderjeet, Secretaries- Shashi Bhusan Pravaraj, Pranab Sarkar, Dr. Shailesh Kumar Pandey, A.K.Rai, Santiosh Gope, Treasurer – Asem Bhakt Singh.
NEC & Other Members- YS Rajeshwara Rao, Taya Bagang, Sonam Jelly, Sameem Sultana Ahmed, Dhanjit Kumar Das, Izhar Ahmed Siddiqui, Intiyaz Ahmad Bazaz, Bhim Prasad Rawat, Sarat Chandra Behera, R.S. Bajpai, C.H. Sriraj, Y.S. Rajeshwar Rao, Bejoy Kakchingtabam, K. Saroj kumar Sharma, Khwairakpam Naoba, A Jitam Singh, Radheshyam Lori and Umashankar Sahu.
Invitees were: Prasad Sagarapu, P Sanga Reddy (Telangana), Deepak Kr Acharjee, Farhadul Islam Parvez (Bangladesh), (Orissa)
Apologies: Shiv Prakash Gaur, C Basheer Madala, O.P. Ismail, Amar Sangno, B. Sivakumar.
The meeting was started with a welcome note of the President and one minute’s silence was observed to condole the demise of members of the IJU in different states.
In the meeting reports of the state union were presented, read by the state representatives and office bearers and accepted.
Geetartha Pathak, president of the IJU in his report stated that journalism is passing through a testing time in our country during the last few years and so is the predicament of the trade unionism in the field of media industry. Similarly, digitalization, pressure on survival of print and traditional media, lay off and large scale retrenchments, dilution of labour laws, safety of journalists, media right violations and increasing pressure on freedom of speech and media have posed as a big challenge before us.
Giving some illustrations of anti-freedom of press activities and atrocities towards journalists like 84 times of network shutdown in several parts of the country in 2022, he highlighted a few specific cases : (a) Closure of Kashmir Press Club by the government by locking the door, journalists are being summoned at odd hours to interrogate for their reportages, they are arrested, accreditation cards are not renewed nor new press cards are issued, advertisements to the media critical to the government has been totally stopped etc. IJU earlier decided to undertake actions on the plight of the Kashmir journalists however its yet to be initiated. (b) The draft rules published by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that e intermediaries such as Twitter and Facebook require to remove any post that is tagged as “fake news” by the government’s information dissemination wing, the Press Information Bureau. This change to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, if accepted, could severely hurt news reporting and free speech on the internet.
He suggested on the necessity of raising the fund of the IJU by publishing monthly/ periodical news magazine, accelerating the process of merger with the Akhouri group of IJU.
Secretary General Sabina Inderjeet highlighted on the duties of the office bearers and the scores of tasks to be completed by the union.
State Unions: Reports from the state unions of Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Odissa, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and Invitee of Telangana was received and recorded with thanks.
Various serious issues including violence and unstable situation in which thousands of people are displaced, houses were burnt, people were killed and have taken refuge in refugee centres. Other issues related to journalists were also discussed.