The Media Education Foundation India (MEFI), a trust for the education of working journalists, appointed a three-member Independent Commission to study the state of media and living and working conditions of the working journalists in the two Telugu speaking States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh under the chairmanship of Justice B Sudarshan Reddy, a retired judge of Supreme Court.
The other two members of the Commission are Prof. K S Chalam, former member of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and former Vice- Chancellor of Dravidian University and Chennamaneni Rajeswar Rao, a veteran journalist. For the first time in the country, a Commission headed by a retired judge of Supreme Court will be going into the state of media and living and working conditions of the journalists.
In a statement issued here on Sunday, Chairman of the MEFI, K Sreenivas Reddy said, “We thought it necessary to study the problems in depth by an Independent Commission under the Chairmanship of an eminent jurist, an academic and a veteran journalist as members. We are grateful to Justice Sudarshan Reddy, ProfK S Chalam and Chennamaneni Rajeswar Rao for giving their consent to be in the Commission. We are sure Commission will go into the whole gamut of issues related to state of the media, living and working conditions of journalists and independent and ethical journalism.” The Commission held its first sitting in Hyderabad on Sunday and discussed preliminary issues.
“The Commission will go into the state of the media and living and working conditions of the journalists in the two states in the wake of reports of death of about 220 journalists in the last four years in Telangana state, due to work-stress related diseases at a young age. The Commission would hold sittings in urban and rural centres in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to elicit views from the working journalists, their organizations, intellectuals, concerned citizens, media managements and state governments to strengthen the roots of independent media and ethical journalism,” Sreenivas Reddy said.