shri vinod sharma - Rajya Sabha

does hanky-panky in a free-market economy situation So, the big question that we
have to answer is that, though we can, perhaps, do a sting against a lowly
bureaucrat or a small-time politician or, maybe, some big-time Members of
Parliament, we can do sting on them and catch them taking money for asking
questions, but can we do a sting on people or business houses whose odd spends
are the lifeline of your newspapers This raises the basic question: how pure is the
freedom of the press, derived from the freedom of speech, or, how honestly is it
being exercised One is not seeking a judicial intervention here to set things in
order. But, is there even a suggestion of a debate within And when we are
talking about the debate which would be fruitful and which would correct the
aberrations, it is not going to do with debates in the committee rooms of Parliament;
I think, the debate has to be initiated with the participation of the owners, the editorowners
and, perhaps, the people who are their annadaataas, the big business.
Now, it is not just about taking money from political parties; it has been said
that it started with 2004. No. It started much earlier. It started with elections in
Gujarat which Narendra Modi won before 2004. And it started with Punjab elections
which first Amrinder won and, thereafter, the Akali Dal won. And, indeed, the
mofussil correspondents of certain vernacular dailies -- whether you want to call
them Hindi language dailies -- were called in a meeting by the proprietors and the
suggestion that was made, according to one person who was part of that meeting,
was that you are, in any case, making money; so, why don't we institutionalise it,
you take a commission and we take the rest. Now, the audience which was given
this fait accompli had little choices because there are newspapers in this country
who do not pay salaries to their journalists; they only given them identity cards.
And you have such newspapers in a prosperous State like Punjab. And, then, once
a journalist gets his identity card, he is told, "•ÖÖ†Öê ²ÖêüÖ! †²Ö Ûú´ÖÖ†Öê †Öî¸ü ÜÖÖ†Öê". It is
that bad. And, I am not imagining these quotes! If you know the person, if you