Need rules to balance digital media: Irani

Maintaining that India will have around 969 million Internet users by 2021, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani on Thursday pitched for putting in place “laws, ethics and rules” to ensure that no one player dominated the digital media industry. Inaugurating the 15th Asia Media Summit (AMS) 2018 here, she said the Indian media industry looked upon the digital world not only as a challenge but also as an opportunity.

“Do we look at the new evolving technologies from a position of suspect, or do we look at it from a position of opportunity, from a position of consolidation or further expansion,” the I&B Minister asked at the opening session. 

Within the next three years, India would have over 969 million Internet users, she said.  “This is the time to put laws, ethics, rules into place which help us balance out the industry so that we don’t have one dominant player who rules the roost,” Irani stressed.

The three-day media summit is being hosted by the I&B Ministry jointly with the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) and public sector firm Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL).  The theme of the summit is: ‘Telling Our Stories - Asia and More”.

Irani said India was the fastest growing advertising market, which was expected to touch 10.59 billion US dollars by the end of 2018, and mobile spend was estimated to grow to 1.55 billion US dollars in 2018.  Times Group Managing Director Vineet Jain said with more than 900 TV channels and about 17,000 newspapers, India was the most diverse and vibrant media market in the world today.

Later addressing the delegates, Union Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said government always prefers self regulation in media and media needs to understand that in a democracy everyone should be accountable.

“We in India have always celebrated diversity. We have also appreciated how our people are getting informed and mature by the proliferation of media- news, magazine, television channels and now digital media. We support self regulation but media needs to understand that no institution in a democracy should remain unaccountable,” he said

Prasad informed the delegates that the Government has set up a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge to recommend on a legislative framework for data protection. There is a need to strike a balance between data availability, data utility, data anonymity, data innovation and data privacy, he said.

Bangladesh Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu outlined six complex challenges the world faces today, listing them as poverty, gender disparity, terrorism, ICT revolution, climate change and uneven globalisation. Cambodia Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said, “We are trying to improve the state of the press in Cambodia. We seek to maintain strong relationships with the fourth estate.”

UNESCO Director (New Delhi)  Shigeru Aoyagi talked about the role of the media in creating peace and partnership on the planet.