By ATUL DEV, August 20, 2015
On 2 August 2015, Firstpost - an Indian news website that comes under the Network18 group, the Reliance Industries-owned media conglomerate - removed an article written by the website's editor-in-chief R Jagannathan, titled, "GST, Land Bill on Hold: Modi May Have to Rethink Jaitley as Finance Minister."
Three of four days after the article first went live, Jagannathan had a meeting with some of the board members of Network18. According to Lakshmi Chaudhry, the former executive editor and co-founder of Firstpost, "a diktat was issued in that meeting that from now on there will be no criticism of certain political leaders. The decision to pull the piece on Jaitley was a part of the same conversation." A senior official, who has been employed with Network18 for several years and was aware of the recent develoments at Firstpost, told me that this directive stated that the website could not carry any criticism of "the big three" in the BJP. No story published on Firstpost could upset the BJP's troika. On 30 July, a little after this meeting took place, Chaudhry decided to resign from her position at Firstpost.
Source The Caravan. To Read more Click Here
Three or four days after the article first went live, Jagannathan had a meeting with some of the board members of Network18. According to Lakshmi Chaudhry, the former executive editor and co-founder of Firstpost, “a diktat was issued in that meeting that from now on there will be no criticism of certain political leaders. The decision to pull the piece on Jaitley was a part of the same conversation.” A senior official, who has been employed with Network18 for several years and was aware of the recent developments at Firstpost, told me that this directive stated that the website could not carry any criticism of “the big three” in the BJP. No story published on Firstpost could upset the BJP’s troika. On 30 July, a little after this meeting took place, Chaudhry decided to resign from her position at Firstpost. - See more at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/why-firstpost-being-asked-refrain-criticising-three-top-leaders-bjp#sthash.i9J1XjV9.dpuf
Three or four days after the article first went live, Jagannathan had a meeting with some of the board members of Network18. According to Lakshmi Chaudhry, the former executive editor and co-founder of Firstpost, “a diktat was issued in that meeting that from now on there will be no criticism of certain political leaders. The decision to pull the piece on Jaitley was a part of the same conversation.” A senior official, who has been employed with Network18 for several years and was aware of the recent developments at Firstpost, told me that this directive stated that the website could not carry any criticism of “the big three” in the BJP. No story published on Firstpost could upset the BJP’s troika. On 30 July, a little after this meeting took place, Chaudhry decided to resign from her position at Firstpost. - See more at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/why-firstpost-being-asked-refrain-criticising-three-top-leaders-bjp#sthash.i9J1XjV9.dpuf
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