Sunil Negi and Meghna Dhulia of Uttarakhand contesting for Management Committee of Press Club of India. Voting will be held on 23 September.

This time Meghna Dhulia of Times of India and independent journalist Sunil Negi are candidates in the election of PCI’s Management Committee from the panel of Gautam-Manoranjan-Neeraj-Mahtab and Mohit apart from fourteen other journalists.

In this panel, journalists from top houses of print and electronic media are in the electoral fray.

It may be noted that due to the completion of the tenure of Press Club of India President Umakant Lakhera, new elections for the new president, office bearers and management committee of PCI were formally announced and now voting will be held on Saturday, 23rd September.

Giving information, senior journalist of Uttarakhand origin Sunil Negi, who is contesting the election of PCI’s Management Committee from the panel of Gautam-Manoranjan-Neeraj-Mahtab and Mohit, said that the main goal of his panel is to protect and expand the freedom of media. This team will be at the forefront in upholding and protecting the freedom of the media in letter and spirit as expressed in Article 19(1)A of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and expression to citizens said Negi.

He said : Our panel includes Gautam Lahiri (Independent Journalist) as Chairman, Manoranjan Bharti (ND TV) as Vice Chairman, Neeraj Thakur (The Probe) as General Secretary, Mohammad Mahtab Alam (The Wire) as Joint Secretary, Mohit Dubey (News Nation) as Treasurer. Are candidates. While I, Meghna Dhulia (Times of India), Pragya Singh (News Click), Surbhi Kanga (The Caravan), Vineeta Thakur (All India Radio), Anish Kumar (Asianet News), Mayank Singh (The New Indian Express), Jatin Gandhi (Jagran News Media), Ashish Gupta (Assomiya Pratidin), NR Mohanty (Independent Journalist), Manvendra Vashishtha Love (PTI), Ravindra Kumar (CNN News 18), Shankar Anand (Network 18), Ashraf Ali (Asia Times/Urdu), Tellaprolu Srinivas Rao ( TVS Telugu) and Abdul Bari Masood (Salar Urdu Daily) are all contesting the elections for the management committee.

Sunil Negi explains that his panel will lead the campaign against harassment of journalists under various laws, which are increasingly being used to silence them. We believe this will revive the Federation of Press Clubs, which is a group of press clubs across India that conduct regular elections on their own. In addition to this it wil also promote media freedom and the rights of journalists including protecting them from coercive actions by the state in carrying out their work, especially for our journalist colleagues in remote areas.

Under this team, the Press Club of India will lead efforts to develop a framework for reforming media laws in India added Sunil Negi.

Self-regulation for expansion of media freedom as envisioned under Article 19(1)A.

Sunil Negi explains that his panel will examine ways to strengthen the Working Journalists Act, 1955 to expand its scope beyond the print media. It will conduct sensitization programs to protect journalists, including independent journalists and YouTubers, from existing coercive laws, the upcoming Press Regulation Act or the pending Information Technology Rules, 2021, or any other future legislation that may lead to media suppression. It will create a legal cell to provide assistance to journalists facing prosecution by the state.

Upskilling and Workplace development-

The team will organize regular workshops/seminars to enhance the skills of journalists in specialist areas such as fact-checking, data and mobile journalism, visual journalism (OSINT) and media laws.

It will develop a work space for broadcast/audio-visual journalists on the lines of PCI Media Centre.

Institutional autonomy

He said that this team of the panel will ensure that the Press Club of India remains autonomous without affiliation to any political party/activity. Institutional autonomy can be strengthened only by encouraging diversity. To achieve this, the team will actively work towards achieving greater gender, caste and regional inclusivity while conducting its membership drive. It is proposed to organize monthly meetings between the youth members of the club and its office bearers to obtain feedback, in relation to the functioning of the Club and also to encourage them to lead efforts in shaping an emerging media landscape driven by technology. It is important to promote non-English language journalism, including Urdu, to strengthen institutional autonomy. The team will take steps to provide greater visibility to all forms of non-English language journalism said Negi.

He added that it will also develop a working mechanism to submit suggestions for improving the functioning of the Press Club of India.

Regarding protection of workers rights Negi said that as per his panel’s election manifesto, this team will work actively to protect the rights of all media persons further ensuring that there is no violation of the rights of the employees of the Press Club of India and no privatization. It will explore ways to develop a social security support system for experienced journalists and those coming from socially and economically weaker sections of the society. This will strengthen the grievance redressal system said Negi.

He said the panel’s tag line is : By journalists, for journalists and a team of journalists to protect media independence, maintain institutional autonomy and protect workers’ rights.

However, many of the faces in this panel contesting the PCI elections can be called the shining faces of present day journalism, as well as those faces who have been the fourth pillar of the democracy through their journalism and special articles for decades. Let it be known that senior journalist Sunil Negi was the media advisor to the evergreen actor Rajesh Khanna of his time when he became an MP.

The countdown to the checkmate story of this election season of PCI has started as voting is to be held on 23rd September. This panel is absolutely confident that they are winning the election.