| Up, up and above?
The journalist fraternity of the State has been embarking on a boycott of the SPF Ministers and MLAs for the last eight days beginning April 21 protesting the bar on entry of accredited journalists inside the State Secretariat. Peeved at the indifferent attitude of the Government even after repeated reminders and requests, the local dailies in particular and the media, both print and electronic have been censuring news reports relating to the SPF Ministers and MLAs during the period.
Though the move must have caused a certain amount of inconvenience to the general public and the information seeking newspaper renders in particular, the step was necessitated to right certain wrongs. In fact the Government inaction is the major reason behind the scuttling of the right to information of the general public. Whether there were instructions from the higher ups in the Secretariat to impose the restrictions on the accredited journalists cannot be bared naked from the side of the scribes as the authorities concerned including the Chief Minister and the GAD Under Secretary had repeatedly claimed that there is no such ban, the matter when viewed in the right earnest, reveals the fact that the sentries manning the Secretariat entrance must have acted upon certain orders. If this is wrong, nobody including even the Chief Minister should try to ignore the grim reality that the bureaucrats and the lower employees of the State Government are working above the Government and not following its orders.
The scribes were not allowed to enter the Secretariat premises on two recent occasions which had led to the present impasse. One was on April 17 and the other on April 19, the latter occurring after the scribes had received proper assurance from the Chief Minister that the earlier “misunderstanding” will be looked into. What the journalists fraternity has been unable to understand is what could be the reason for barring the entry of the scribes who simply go to the Secretariat to collect reports for public benefit.
If there was no ban on the scribes entry, it could be well questioned whether the Ibobi Singh Government is so weak that it cannot even pull up a few Government employees who had created this mess unnecessarily. Moreover, it is also a wonder why Chief Minister 0 Ibobi has not been able to issue a written order of the verbal assurances which he had given to the scribes time and again. Or, is the Government machinery so lethargic that it cannot even prepare a one page order in a long span of eight days?
As has been the trend during the recent years, the State Secretariat, next to the Education Department, has not been free from allegations of bribery and corruption. After viewing the ban from-different angles, there seems to be no other rational conclusion except saying that certain elements believe that the frequent entry of reporters inside the Secretariat could foil the entire operation. The current stand of the Government has shown its true picture in poor light. It will do nothing good to the status or the prestige of the six party Government. The right to information of the scribes cannot continue to be violated anymore.
(Courtesy: The
Sangai Express)
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