Arun Jaitley said that he felt that if this experiment of "selective and excessive advertising" succeeds, then "all states will do it".
Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday raised questions over "selective and excessive" advertising by a state government and wondered if it amounts to "political bribery", a veiled attack on the Aam Aadmi Party government.
"If today any state gets the right to disburse excessive and selective advertising, a trend which is being witnessed for the first time, under which friends are rewarded and opponents punished. "So the power of selective and excessive advertising is used.... I raised a question - will such advertising become political bribery or political incentive?" he asked.
Jaitley, who holds the Finance and I&B portfolios, did not name any party but his remarks come at a time when the BJP has been attacking the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi over its advertisement budget. Speaking at an event organised by RSS linked Inderprastha Vishwa Samvad Kendra (IVSK), Jaitley said that he used to feel that the "era of censorship or pinching pockets had ended", but the first symptoms of a new method are being witnessed in the country.
Jaitley said that he felt that if this experiment of "selective and excessive advertising" succeeds, then "all states will do it". "And those people, who are critics of the ideology which I support, their stunning silence is most eloquent," Jaitley said, adding that a debate is needed on the issue. Referring to the Constituent Assembly, he said the two media personalities in it - Ramnath Goenka and D B Gupta -had emphasised on aspects related to the need to preserve commercial independence of media. The Finance Minister, however, also said that the idea of any curbs on the freedom of media has been rejected by society and in this age, because of technology, this is not even possible. "If the Emergency, instead of 1975, had been brought in 2016, technology itself would have defeated it," he said.
Jaitley said the definition of the term news has been changing. He said there was a time when reading one newspaper gave you the entire picture. He said with the coming of 24X7 TV news, the definition of news changed to what camera can capture. He said the "camera had a preference for capturing certain kind of things. If there is good weather, good rain or a good harvest, it would not make news. But if there is drought and earth is torn, that camera can capture and it becomes news."
He said that even foreign channels give a package of news in their bulletins but Indian channels show only a single news story throughout the day, whether it has a huge importance in the context of actual reality or not.
He hailed the digital media as an empowerment tool but added that it is important that it is used responsibly or else this gift can be counter-productive.
At the event, Jaitley also conferred honours on several journalists. The 'Narada Samman' for Lifetime achievement was given to veteran journalist Shyam Khosla. Several other journalists were also conferred awards in various categories, including The Indian Express photojournalist Ravi Kanojia, who recently lost his life in an accident.
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