Congress, Left slam GoM report on ‘govt communication’ to rein in criticism | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Congress and the Left have lashed out at a Group of Ministers’ report on “government communication” that particulars methods to rein in criticism and deploy the idea of “Pokhran effect” to amplify the Centre’s insurance policies, programmes and achievements.
Addressing a press convention, AICC spokesperson Supriya Shrinate mentioned there’s a “government communication report” which was a panel comprising prime ministers and functionaries who mentioned the methods of controlling the media. She mentioned whereas one minister urged retaining a watch on unfavourable influencers, an MP urged “giving something to the media” whereas one more functionary mentioned there have been sufficient means with the federal government to management the media. She mentioned in addition they mentioned “colour coding” journalists as per their remedy of information.
CPM chief Sitaram Yechury mentioned, “So much focus on managing headlines, spin and PR, all this in the middle of a global pandemic, record and growing unemployment and economic collapse.”
Deliberations of the 9-member group comprising Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar, S Jaishankar, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Kiren Rijiju, Hardeep Singh Puri, Anurag Thakur and Babul Supriyo, started on June 14 final yr and have been intensified in the aftermath of the June 15 Galwan Valley clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the Leh-Ladakh area.
The report, a duplicate of which TOI has, focuses on figuring out 10 large narratives of the federal government, disseminating factual information, curbing pretend information, and projecting India’s worldwide picture.
The report, compiled following six conferences of the GoM and ministerial interactions between media, trade chambers and eminent personalities, accommodates suggestions together with Naqvi’s proposal to establish a “strategy to neutralise people who are writing against the government without facts and set false narratives/ spread fake news”, and Anurag Thakur’s suggestion that “right-wing parties of other countries need to be roped in so that some common ground could be found”.
Hardeep Puri mentioned that “we are in confrontation situation with political interest and commercially-backed interests” and emphasised the “strong need to deal with the international media and shape the global narrative”.
External affairs minister Jaishankar confused the necessity to “prepare separate, appropriate and different narrative for international media”, whereas I&B minister Javadekar mentioned the “narrative is fuelled by around 20-30 people” and the problem earlier than the federal government is to set optimistic narratives repeatedly. Irani, on the opposite hand, urged monitoring 50 unfavourable and optimistic influencers, asking the federal government to accomplice with social media platforms like Facebook, Yout-Tube and Twitter and have interaction with them “informally”.
Communications and IT minister Prasad really useful drawing up an inventory of media personnel and outstanding individuals “who are pro our line of thought both nationally and globally”.
“Planned communication is good for normal times but to create Pokhran effect, let Nitish Kumar or Naveen Patnaik say something about it. This is being done by Republic, but Republic is seen as a pariah. Therefore, we need a Pokhran to turn the narrative,” RSS idealogue S Gurumurthy added, a remark Prasad has endorsed, in accordance to the report.
Former Prasar Bharati chairman Surya Prakash additionally mentioned the communication drawback dealing with the federal government arises out of “pseudo secularists (who) were marginalised earlier”. “Indian government has enormous power to utilise the position to control them,” Prakash mentioned.