GROWING INTOLERENCE.......

Sri lanka has had a rough year so far,so has Nepal and pakistan as there is a surge in the number of cases of voilent attack on press and journalists.Acc to reports south asia has helped to keep press freedom organisations in the west in bussiness for sometime now,it is regarded as one of the most dangerous part of the world to work in.

last week a district court in Sri lanka ordered a compensation of 10,000 Rs for a journalist beaten up two and half years ago ,while the poicemen who had beaten him did'nt got any punishment.pakistan saw 11 incidents in june of attacks on media persons.

keeping up with the trends in south asia assaults on the press have been on increase in India too.with a lil help from some of our chief ministers the worlds largest democracy is these dismal incidents.last month we saw threats to journalist or writers in maharashtra,gujrat,kerala and UP.such incidents asserts that freedom of speech ,writing is now not tolerated in democracy.if u expose a courpt police officer,u hv to face criminal charges.if u criticise a section of society in an edit page article, police register a criminal offence against u .And if u are covering political groups attacking each other in public place,they turn on u and beat u up.

Message all these incidents convey is that politicians in power or policemens hv a tolerence ro criticism.these to brass dont recog nise power of pen,also they dont need press any more."my son has a multiedition news paper that reaches all corners of the state" said AP chief minister rajeshekher reddy.

recently in similar incident Amar Singh flared up and misbehaved wid a TV reporter when quized abt his personal-political rivelry wid congress leader Sonia Gandhi and his party(SP) supporting cong. on nuke deal.

the more serious danger is not that freedom of press is under threat bt that the press is becoming irrelevent.it is worth asking that why public dont raise cain against attactks on the press.may be bcoz there is so much of media around it to seem endangered.or becoz media no longer means the same what the word press used to.