Even allowing for these measures, UNI The Four-In-On, rarmula m~~~~~p~i~~~~~~~~~~~ At no other time in its long and colourful ing to the Minister, the facts supplied by the costs average out to ro6khly Rs. 10.5 million UhistoF? has the fourth estate in India found agencies had often been found to be incorrect. a year. With the additional staff, the new itself tnadvertently in the news, as much as Mr. Shukla also accused the agencies of agency, when it is formed, will be paying in recent months. providing news that was "elite biased and full time correspondents to cover the rural ) The press censorship rules which came oriented to urban needs." areas, and apart from the poor returns, the i into force in the immediate wake of the Discussing the proposed merger, Mr. UNI agency source fears that this will June 26 declaration of emergency, was Shukla stated that the government wanted also lead to dislocation of the families of the closely followed by a set of new press laws a national news agency to be set up, and correspondents, most of whom are already promulgated by the government. These repeatedly assured the House that the new well settled in their present areas. included the abolition of the Press Council agency would be entirely free from govern- Another problem that will surely emerge of India, and a law banning the publication ment control. He also added that if the as a result of the merger, will be the deploy- of objectionable matter. government wanted it could "twist the arms ment of the lower grade staff, like teleprinter The latest addition to the list is the of the four news agencies," to make them operators, office peons, etc. The new agency & proposed merger of four of the leading, do what the government wanted, but it will obviously not be able to utilize the independent news agencies in the country. had no desire,to do this. Instead, the govern- services of all of them, and whether they will The agencies involved are, PTI (Press Trust ment was prepared to assist the agencies in be able to absorb them in some other of India), UNI (United News of India), the process of merger in different ways. capacity, is going to pose another headache Hindustan Samachar and Samachar Bharati. While PTI and UNI bureau'chiefs in for the agency Board members when they UNI and PTI cater to the English news New Delhi have refused to comment on meet sometime next week. "The other medi here and abroad, while the other two the merger, it seems fairly obvious that the problems can be overcome," said a UNI agem4 es cater mainly to Indian language merger is going to pose some very thorny source, "but it seems certain that the govern- newspapers. problems, the foremost among them being ment will be asked to shoulder some of the the re-allocation of staff. responsibility." PTI, which is the largest single indepen- The chances of All India Radio continu- dent news agency in the country, employs a ing without the services of PTI and UNI, full time staff of approximately 1,000 of seems to be highly unlikely. For A.I.R. to which 210 are journalists. The agency has a set up a news organization of their own total of 70 bureaus all over the country, would involve a costly and time consuming and also employs six or seven foreign effort, and all the signs point to A.I.R. correspondents abroad. UNI, on the other renewing their contract once the new agency hand, employs a staff of about 500 in 50 has been set up. bureaus all over India. Though this may Mr. Shukla has stated in Parliament, that seem a small number in comparison to the the new agency would be "fully autonomous vast size of the country, as one UNI source and independent, so that we don't want put it, "more men does not necessarily anybody to think that news is managed or mean better news coverage." While conced- controlled by the government." ing that there was some truth in the govern- The Minister pointed out that many ments allegation that their news was urban countries had just a single news agency, oriented, he declared that the agency had and in the case of India, he said that "having found that posting full time correspondents four weak agencies depending mostly on the in rural areas was a waste of manpower. government or A.I.R. subscriptions is not While an urban based correspondent could a healthy thing:" bring in two or three news stories a day, While the obvious implication seems rural based correspondents were only able to be that the new agency, when it comes to produce one news item every two or into being, will be a "healthy" one,'the three weeks. It was for this reason that UNI real proof will lie in the performance, and had found it more economical to obtain if the governments accusations against the rural news through stringers, who are paid agencies are true, than the scope for improve- V. C. Shukla-Spreading the Samachar according to the number of news stories ment seems to be very vast indeed. I they send in. -Dilip Bobb Although rumours regarding the merger had been in circulation for some months now, official confirmation was released only The 'Samachar' two weeks ago. The Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Mr. Vidya Charan Shukla, confinned the rumours during a recent r~arliament session of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House), while answering questions on the reasons for the abrupt discontinua- rtiW of PTI and UNI services from the government-run All India Radio. In his Lr reply, Mr. Shukla stated that it had been I decided to discontinue PTI and UNI services because the news coverage provided by I both the agencies had been inadequate and lacking in both quality and quantity. Accord- -'*. UNITED NEWS OF INDI -IN"'^ '^?Av ""SlJARY 15 1376 -- a.t!*".d DBirr r