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Cable mafia shows ugly face in
Punjab as Sukhbir comes under fire
Zee Punjabi blocked, but PTC channels get prime slots on cable
networks
WSN Network
 CHANDIGARH:
For months now, everyone in Punjab knew what was happening. The
brashness and the blatant way in which goons backed by the ruling
clique within the Akali Dal were browbeating the cable industry in
Punjab and calling the shots over what channel will be carried with
primacy by the cable-wallahs was known to one and all. but no one
was able to do much about it.
The media, ever
so eager to cry off about freedom of the press and attack on the
azadi of the press did not question why the Sri Harmandir Sahib,
Amritsar's Gurbani telecast rights went from ETC channel owned by
the Zee TV empire to PTC channel. No one was asking questions, and
no one is doing it even now, about how one channel finds Sukhbir
Badal, Harsimrat Badal, Surinder Badal and Parkash Singh Badal the
only entities worth reporting when Bikramjit Majithia and Manpreet
Badal are not available, the rest of the world may be doomed?
But after Zee
Punjabi channel telecast a news item about an outspoken Congress
MLA, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, openly underlining the cable mafia
operating in Punjab and the goos of the Students Organization of
India (SOI) browbeating the TV channels, reporters and cablewallahs
into submission, suddenly Zee Punjabi channel went off the air.
There was a
verbal clear directive: No Zee Punjabi or you will not be allowed to
do business.
That Sukhbir
Singh Badal and his friends are behind and are running the PTC
channels and that they have a score to settle with the Zee Punjabi
channel is something known to even rookie reporters. Things were no
different during Amarinder Singh's regime when his government was
backing the Punjab Today channel with gusto, ads and toughs. Now,
PTC is the Badal family's Punjab Today.
But where is the
independent media that was so worried about the azadi of the press?
Whatever happened to the pious slogans about freedom of the press?
Or is PTC the holy cow and Sukhbir the powerful bull?
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AKALI DAL'S PUNJAB TODAY? |
Now,
Amarinder Singh has come out with claims that cable mafia is
operating blatantly, Punjab Congress president Mohinder Singh Kaypee
has also said that the cable network in the state being was being
forcibly taken over by CM Badal and his son Sukhbir to stifle the
voice of the people.
Badal Sr. has
expressed his ignorance saying “I know nothing about it,” a clear
admission that he was not in control in all domains and sonny
Sukhbir was proving to be running a parallel empire.
In Jalandhar, in
a badly managed press conference on Thursday, some cable operators
tried to deny that they had blocked telecast of the Zee Punjabi
channel in Punjab
at the behest of Sukhbir but instead said it was stopped "as we are
yet to sign an agreement with it." If the mediamen present there
were laughing at the claims, that sent the right message, but a
better way is to bring out the real truth.
It is time the
media brought out what was happening to the cable network monopoly
in Punjab.
The way the transport sector (particularly the bus permits and
buses), the sand quarrying, the real estate, the cable industry is
being run should be prime areas of investigation.
The media must
understand that it itself is under scanner. The vast and silent
multitudes may not write intellectual columns everyday but when it
comes to the real strength of the media, it comes from the people.
Pressed beyond a
point, the Zee group has gone public to say that their channels were
being blocked and government was using “illegitimate control”
through cable networks DIGI Cable Operator Network.
It is time we
all understood that it is the people's right, the people's fight,
and therefore ours, and we got to fight it all the way.
19 December
2008
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