2005-2014

A court in Saharanpur (state of Uttar Pradesh) decided, on 4 July, to imprison Kumar Badal, a reporter with the on-line newspaper Tehelka.com. A hearing is to be held with Badal on 5 July in a poaching case. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) accused Badal of asking poachers to kill wild animals in a national park. The site's managers have denounced this imprisonment, which, according to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by today's attack on Shahid Rashid, editor of the Urdu-language daily State Reporter. Rashid was shot this morning by masked gunmen as he rode his scooter to the newspaper office in the Chanapora area of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir State. Both Pakistan and India claim the disputed territory of Kashmir for their own...

It's been called an industry standard, the norm, an average and a rule of thumb. It's also been called a myth, folklore and flat-out wrong. Yet it's often cited--even if it's being derided--and widely known by most in the newspaper business. What is it? The infamous staffing benchmark that says a paper should have one newsroom employee for every 1,000 in circulation. Most of you know of it. In my...

Dear journalist, fear not the blog. Embrace the blog. Weblogs are online journals consisting of brief entries displayed in chronological order on a page (see "Online Uprising," June). They are usually (but not always) written in a conversational voice and usually (but not always) peppered with links and references to other sites. If you've visited Jim Romenesko's MediaNews (poynter.org/medianews)...

RSF protested the search carried out at the head office of the website Tehelka.com. "The fact that this search was conducted on the very same day that the website's editor was due to give evidence of capital importance in an inquiry into a corruption scandal shows that the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI] and the government are stepping up the pressure that has been exerted on the management...

As the dust settles on the Tuesday announcement by the Government of India to open the window to FDI in print, it's time to take a quick look at the scenario that is likely to emerge. But before that here is the implication of the June 25 announcement. What has the Government actually done? The Government has allowed 26 per cent foreign direct investment in the news and current affairs segment in...

The recently released National Readership Survey (NRS) maintains that readers prefer newspapers/dailies to magazines. Surprised? Well, check out the figures. From 93.8 million in 1999, the readership base in India is down to 86.2 million for magazines in the current year, representing a drop of 8 per cent. In contrast, from 131 million in 1999, the readership base for newspapers/dailies has...

The hearings resumed in the Geelani case on 18 June. The journalist had been remanded in custody for a further three days on 15 June. According to V.K Ohri, Iftikhar Geelani's lawyer, the documents seized from his client's home had been available on the Internet since 1993. Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières) called today for the release of Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Ali...

On 11 June 2002, RSF called for the release of Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Ali Geelani and suggested his arrest was an attempt to restrict coverage of events in Kashmir. "Charging a Kashmiri journalist under the Official Secrets Act in the present circumstances would seem an effort to intimidate any media which tries to report independently on the conflict in the province," said RSF Secretary...

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF-Reporters Without Borders) expressed its serious concern over the attempted murder of the journalist Zafar Iqbal in Srinagar. The organisation for the defence of press freedom has asked, in a letter sent today to the Chief Minister of the State of Kashmir, Dr Farooq Abdullah, for an investigation to be opened rapidly by the local police in order to identify the...