The CentralGovernment's Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) has stoppedissuing advertisement to The Assam Tribune since February for supporting the Citizenship AmendmentBill(CAB) , the newspaper reported in their lead news today.
The Assam Tribune in its report said that it was done allegedly on "instructions from higher ups". When the newspaper tried to ascertain the reasons for stopping all DAVP advertisements, it has been learnt that the stand taken by this newspaper on the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (CAB) led the NDA government to take such a step against the newspaper.
Officials, when contacted, expressed their helplessness andsaid that it was a political issue and should be sorted out at political level,the Assam Tribune reports.
Meanwhile The Centre has come under fire from theOpposition, which has decried the NDA government's alleged attempt at trying togag the media by stopping government advertisements to media houses which areseen as critical of the administration.
Raising the issue, leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha AdhirRanjan Chowdhury described it as a serious matter, while Mohua Moitra attackedthe government and wanted to know if certain media houses were excluded fromgovernment advertisements.
"Media is being gagged, all advertisements are beingstopped. Their fault is that they have been raising voices against thegovernment, which is not a crime," Chowdhury alleged.
Meanwhile, Mahua Moitra, who represents Krishnanagar LokSabha seat in West Bengal, raising the issue during Zero Hour on Thursday said:"We want to know as to what is the break-up of the advt-spend via media housesand if certain print media are being excluded. This is very important," shesaid.
"In December, 2018, the then Minister for Information andBroadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said on the Floor of the House that thegovernment, from the year 2014 till December, 2018, had spent approximately Rs5,246 crore on advertising.
"This was only the Central government's expenditure. It doesnot include public sector undertaking expenditure, which, I believe, forms thebulk of it. Given that this is the tax payers' money and what the PSUs arespending is also tax payers' money, we need to have a better idea what thetotal advertising spending is.
"You can see, in 2014-15, it was Rs 979 crore, which went upto about Rs 1,300 crore in 2017-18. Five of the largest news mediaorganisations in this country are either owned or indirectly debted to oneperson. He is the richest Indian. He is an associate who is on the board of thelargest telecom venture. News Nation, India TV, News 24, Network 18, are allowned by…," she said without naming anyone.
