Chennai: Contending that national security should be of paramount interest for all, Union information and broadcasting minister M. Venkaiah Naidu defended his government’s decision enforcing one-day ban on NDTV India over the latter’s Pathankot coverage. He flayed those opposing it saying, “the belated criticism is clearly ill informed and politically inspired to create a controversy.”
The ban decision was not based on any newly invented rule and principle. “The ground on which action has been proposed (against NDTV India) was only a logical conclusion of concerns clearly articulated by the UPA government in various advisories issued after 26/11 terror attacks on multiple targets in Mumbai in 2008,” the BJP senior argued.
“Such reactions that came a day after the government’s decision was in public domain on November 3, 2016, was clearly an afterthought, suggesting a motivated design to create a controversy where none existed,” the minister said while speaking to reporters here on Saturday. Releasing the advisories issued to the media by the previous Congress-led UPA regime, he said the AXN was banned for two months, FTV for two months while Enter10 was banned for one day.
ABN Andhra Jyothi was banned for seven days and Al Jazeera for five days for showing wrong map of India.
