India ranks 80th on Freedom of Press Index
Reporters Sans Frontieres, or Reporters Without Borders (RWB), a leading media watchdog, has ranked India 80th in its first worldwide press freedom index, placed behind several Asian and African nations. The list was drawn up on the basis of a survey among journalists, researchers and legal experts in 139 countries.

The RWB survey gathered information on a wide range of violations of press freedom, including murders or arrests of journalists, censorship, pressure, state monopolies in various fields, punishment of press law offences and regulation of the media. North Korea, China, Myanmar, Turkmenistan and Bhutan have been named the worst offenders, where 'press freedom is a dead letter and independent newspapers do not exist. The only voice heard is of media tightly controlled or monitored by the government.'

Four countries -- Finland, Iceland, Norway and The Netherlands -- shared first place on the index and were found not only to 'scrupulously respect press freedom in their own countries but also speak up for it elsewhere.'

Tehelka shuts shop
The high-profile news site www.tehelka.com, which broke the sensational defence corruption scandal in March 2001, has shut down, citing financial problems. Editor Tarun Tejpal says the website, which was launched in 1999, will resume operations. Meanwhile, the home page of the site, which stopped updating its content from early October, merely has a notice that reads: 'Due to financial and technical problems we are unable to update the site for the time being.'

After the defence scandal broke, Tehelka has had to pour enormous resources into defending the defence scam story before the K Venkataswamy commission of inquiry. In addition, its investors, including First Global (holding 14.5 per cent in the website's equity) have been 'hounded and persecuted', according to Tejpal.

Urdu press sees falling circulation
The circulation of Urdu newspapers has fallen to 5.1 million copies in 2001 from about six million in 2000 -- a 15-per-cent reduction. Nevertheless, the Urdu press is the fourth largest in India (after Hindi, English and Marathi) and has seen some 60 new newspapers start during 2001-02.

According to a recent report by the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI), the Urdu press comprised 2,906 newspapers in 2001 against 2,844 in 2000. Among dailies, with 534 newspapers having a combined circulation of about three million copies, Urdu ranked second (after Hindi) in terms of the number of publications. There were 21 tri- or bi-weeklies in Urdu, 1,348 weeklies, 377 fortnightlies, 533 monthlies, 72 quarterlies, three annuals and 18 other periodicals.

From http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/10/30/china.internet.script.ap/index.html, October 30, 2002

China drops plan for Chinese-script web address
China has dropped plans to issue its own set of Chinese-script web addresses, a step that would have split the world into two sets of administered addressing systems. China had announced in November 2000 plans to issue its own Chinese-script registrations. Currently, web addresses are administered by the Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

China, which has over 45 million Internet subscribers, has 127,475 domain names registered under the '.cn' suffix, making it one of the biggest markets for web service providers.

IIMC to get 'deemed university' status
Tara Sinha, chairperson of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), has announced that the institute is likely to get the status of a deemed university soon. IIMC, which has recently opened a new Rs 5-crore 400-seater auditorium at its Delhi campus, organised a field visit to Chennai-based media organisations for its foreign students.

The 14-member team comprised journalism students from Zambia, Vietnam, Tajikistan, Kenya, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nepal.

From PIB, October 31, 2002

'The portal for journalists and public alike'
www.journalism.org is operated by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Committee of Concerned Journalists. Recently revamped, the site has a research section, which includes studies of how the media is covering current news stories, lists of education and training resources, including journalism schools and fellowships.

Study on Indian communication and media departments reveals lacunae
The Asian Media Information and Communication Centre of India (AMICCI) has recommended that journalism schools have curricula based on a mix of practical media production (including Internet publishing), media effects, political economy, cultural studies and suitable internships. Based on a study of 77 media organisations and 35 communication / journalism training institutes, the AMICCI has also suggested that the schools emphasise suitable internships.

Given the complexity of the country, the institute has concluded in its study that the media in India -- news and other media organisations -- need multi-skilled people with an understanding of the nature of information. In addition, they need to be well-versed in new communication technologies. India's top 350 dailies employ over 17,000 editorial staff, All India Radio about 24,000 people, Doordarshan over 4,000 in production and news, while private television networks together employ about 1,700 editorial staff and outsource to several more.

The major advertising agencies employ about 3,000 media professionals in all. Media education institutes covered in the survey include a wide range of university and non-university entities, such as Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media, Manipal Institute of Communication, Kerala Press Academy, FTII, Ad Club Chennai, Public Relations Society of India, Bangalore University, Sophia Polytechnic, Xavier Institute of Communication, MICA, and Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication.

The FreeNewsGoa.Net initiative
Promoted by a core team of five professional journalists, including two women, www.FreeNewGoa.Net originated in a tea-shop rendezvous, a handful of reporters repeating an oft-voiced wish for a more open media, "where the truth could be told like it is"! Launched in early 2002, the site has a rotating editorship and voluntary contributions, the copyright over each article vesting with the individual writer.

The site is open to all strains of opinion and totally free of all advertisements. With overwhelming support from several journalists, costs have only been Rs 1,000 so far, largely due to the voluntary help from people in the free software / open source movement and Linux groups who were contacted.

Efforts are now on to generate more content, open up the site to other writers and columnists, make it more topical, have a variety of voices so that biases cancel each other out and infuse more energy with the involvement of more people aside from the core group.

Unesco condemns murder of journalists in India, Pakistan
Unesco has condemned the murder of two journalists in India and Pakistan as an 'odious crime' and a 'direct attack on freedom of speech', and urged the governments in both nations to bring their killers to justice. Pakistani journalist Shahid Soomro, a correspondent of the Sindhi daily Kawish, was shot dead on October 20, reportedly 'in revenge' for his reports on the country's general election earlier this month, an official Unesco statement said.

Indian television journalist Yambem Meghajit Singh was shot dead on October 13 in Imphal, part of what the statement described as a 'wave of violence against journalists in the north-eastern state', with at least four journalists killed in the past three years. The Unesco statement added: "The torture and murder of Singh has been connected to his critical reporting on both separatist groups and local politicians."

New Zealand women release community video
Media Initiatives for Women has released its latest community video, the pilot production of fem'TALK, a day-in-the-life series which focuses on women at the workplace, within the broader context of peace and development of the series. Produced with funding assistance from the New Zealand Agency for International Development / Nga Hoe Tuptupu-mai-tawhiti (NZAID), the series includes Look At My Ability: Litia's Story Education, which highlights the life of a person with a disability, and Mothers Labour: A Day at the Nausori Maternity Unit, which discusses the situation facing nurses at their workplace and at home.

CPJ's International Press Freedom Awards
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will present its 2002 International Press Freedom Awards to four journalists from Colombia, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and Eritrea. All four recipients -- Ignacio Gómez of Colombia, Tipu Sultan from Bangladesh, Fesshaye Yohannes of Setit, a popular Eritrean newspaper and Irina Petrushova, editor-in-chief of the business weekly Respublika in Kazakhstan -- are being honoured for reporting fearlessly on government malfeasance, despite brutal physical attack, death threats, harassment through legal cases, including criminal charges, and imprisonment, all of which were in reprisal for their work.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony in New York City on November 26. CPJ will also honor Daniel Pearl (1963-2002), South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, with the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award, which is given for a lifetime of distinguished achievement for the cause of press freedom.

Pearl had been South Asia bureau chief for almost two years when he was kidnapped and murdered while working on a story in Karachi, Pakistan, early this year. Pearl's wife, Mariane Pearl, will accept the award in his honour. The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to the defence of press freedom worldwide.

For more information about the award winners, and for information about CPJ's work, visit www.cpj.org.

Tata Tetley censured for unethical ad
Tata-owned Tetley Tea was censured by an ethics committee for its recently launched British advertising campaign, suggesting that tea is good for the heart and for suggesting that people who drink tea live longer. The Advertising Standards Authority of Britain ordered Tetley to withdraw the posters after declaring them 'misleading'.

The Advertising Standards Authority also censured Tetley for publishing the advertisements even after it had ruled earlier that claims that tea is good for the heart are unsubstantiated.

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