Editors' Guild of India calls on Prime Minister to revoke Digital Media Rules 2021
- Vineet Malik
- Mar 23, 2021
- 1 min read
Updated: Oct 21, 2023
By Vineet Malik | March 23, 2021 | London, England
The government must not forget that, in the name of reining an unfettered social media it cannot overwhelm India’s constitutional safeguards that has been the cornerstone of our democracy.
The Editors Guild of India (EGI), for the second time in a fortnight urged Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India to have a discussion on the modalities stipulated in the newly introduced “Digital Media Ethics Code, Rules 2021 by the central government.
The EGI, had earlier addressed a letter to the cabinet ministers and the PM for their urgent intervention to revoke such rules on a plea to get them adjudicated only by the independent judiciary.
The letter addressed to the PM states, “The rules issued under the Information Technology Act, 2000 have the potential of fundamentally altering how publishers of news operate over the Internet and undermine freedom of press in the country.”
The stipulated rules are laid down to constitute a three-tier structure to regulate digital media through “Inter-Departmental Committee” at the top while a government officer will be vested with powers to block, modify and delete content anywhere in the country without any judicial surveillance.
The EGI was founded in 1978 with the objectives of protecting press freedom and for raising the standards of editorial leadership of newspapers and magazines.
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