{"id":40960,"date":"2024-05-18T07:17:43","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T01:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=40960"},"modified":"2025-10-11T12:00:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T06:30:57","slug":"rules-for-political-parties-to-use-state-funded-media-during-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/rules-for-political-parties-to-use-state-funded-media-during-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Rules for Political Parties to Use State Funded Media During Polls"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>What Changes were Asked from the Opposition Leaders?<\/li>\n<li>How ECI Allocates Time to Each Recognised Party for Public Broadcasting During Elections?<\/li>\n<li>What are the ECI\u2019s Guidelines on Speech Contents for Public Broadcasting During Elections?<\/li>\n<li>What are the Concerns Raised by the Opposition Leaders?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In the run-up to the ongoing <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/lok-sabha-and-rajya-sabha\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lok Sabha<\/a> elections, two opposition leaders were asked to modify specific parts of their speeches that they had made on Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) during the allotted broadcast time.<\/li>\n<li>Prasar Bharati is India\u2019s state-run public broadcaster and the parent organisation of Doordarshan and AIR.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What Changes were Asked from the Opposition Leaders?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The CPI (Marxist) General Secretary<\/strong> Sitaram Yechury had to delete references to the electoral bond scheme, drop terms \u201ccommunal authoritarian regime\u201d and \u201cdraconian laws\u201d, and replace \u201cbankruptcy\u201d (of governance) with \u201cfailure\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>On the other hand, <strong>the All-India Forward Bloc<\/strong> (AIFB) leader G Devarajan was made to remove the word \u201cMuslims\u201d from his speech about the Citizenship Amendment Act.<\/li>\n<li>According to a Prasar Bharati official, the TV and radio networks were simply following <strong>rules set by the Election Commission of India (ECI)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How ECI Allocates Time to Each Recognised Party for Public Broadcasting During Elections?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Allocation of time:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Since the 1998 Lok Sabha elections<\/strong>, recognised political parties have been allowed to freely use state-owned television and radio during polls.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The amount of time <\/strong>allowed to each recognised national and state party before the election campaign begins is <strong>decided by the ECI<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Amount of time:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>All national parties<\/strong> (put together) get a minimum of 10 hours of telecasting time on Doordarshan\u2019s national channel, and at least 15 hours on its regional channels.\n<ul>\n<li>Additionally, they get 15 hours of airing on regional AIR stations and 10 hours on the national AIR.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>All State parties <\/strong>(put together) get a minimum of 30 hours of telecasting time on the appropriate regional Doordarshan channel and AIR radio station.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Time allotted for the current Lok Sabha elections:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The ECI allocated broadcast and telecast time to each of the six national parties and 59 state parties for the 2024 elections.<\/li>\n<li><strong>For national parties<\/strong>, out of the 10 hours prescribed, a total of 4.5 hours (45 minutes each) was allocated in both Doordarshan and AIR.<\/li>\n<li>The remaining 5.5 hours was further allocated <strong>on the basis of vote share<\/strong> in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.<\/li>\n<li>Similar formulae were followed while allocating time to state parties.<\/li>\n<li>The ECI had allocated 54 minutes each on Doordarshan and AIR to CPI(M), and 26 minutes each on the two media to AIFB.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What are the ECI\u2019s Guidelines on Speech Contents for Public Broadcasting During Elections?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Submit transcripts:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Parties and their speakers are expected to submit transcripts of their speeches three to four days before recording.<\/li>\n<li>These have to be approved by the concerned authorities in the respective AIR and Doordarshan stations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The guidelines forbid:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Criticism of other countries;<\/li>\n<li>Attack on religions or communities;<\/li>\n<li>Anything obscene or defamatory;<\/li>\n<li>Incitement of violence;<\/li>\n<li>Anything amounting to contempt of court;<\/li>\n<li>Attacks against the integrity of the President and judiciary;<\/li>\n<li>Anything affecting the unity, sovereignty and integrity of the nation; and<\/li>\n<li>Any criticism by the name of any person.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What are the Concerns Raised by the Opposition Leaders?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the CPI(M) leader, <strong>the censorship applied<\/strong> to his text is<strong> a patent denial of the right to dissent in a democracy.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The deletion of the word \u2018bankruptcy\u2019 of governance and the suggestion to replace it with \u2018failure\u2019 only <strong>endorses the authoritarian character of the government.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>According to the AIFB leader, he unsuccessfully argued for the need to use the word \u2018Muslim\u2019.\n<ul>\n<li>According to him, the CAA is discriminatory to Muslims because it mentions every other minority community eligible for citizenship (except Muslims).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q.1. What is Prasar Bharati?<\/h3>\n<p>Prasar Bharati is an Indian state-owned public broadcaster, headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is a statutory autonomous body and comprises the Doordarshan television broadcasting and Akashvani (formerly, All India Radio\/ AIR).<\/p>\n<h3>Q.2. What is the purpose of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)?<\/h3>\n<p>The CAA aims to protect individuals who have sought refuge in India due to religious persecution. It offers them a shield against illegal migration proceedings. To be eligible for citizenship, applicants must have entered India on or before December 31, 2014.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-politics\/explained-rules-for-political-parties-to-use-state-funded-media-during-polls-9336115\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Explained: Rules for political parties to use state-funded media during polls<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two opposition leaders were asked to modify specific parts of their speeches that they had made on Doordarshan and AIR during the allotted broadcast time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}