Oct 05: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry is now planning to bring online news portals and web editions of newspapers under the umbrella of the Press and Registration of Books Act that was 140 years old and carrying the old British law of that time till today without major amendment.
For this reason the government will have to amend the PRB Act, which was originally enacted in 1867 and can regulate only those news which are printed on hard copy while online news editions are still out of any regulatory authority.
Now government intends to widen the meaning of various terms, which restrict the regulatory authority to only the hard copy of the news. Under this initiative term like ‘print’, ‘newspaper’ will be redefined to take them under jurisdiction of this act.
Information and Broadcasting minister already gave hints at the meet of the information ministers from states of changing the old law. “In order to make the provisions under the PRB Act in tune with the current environment and times, we are proposing to make certain amendments to make them relevant to the current economic and technological scenario”, said the union minister for information and broadcasting Priyaranjan Das Munshi.
Ministry is viewing that the print is not just the printed paper and the printing is not confined just to printing press today, so we need to change the related laws.
Ministry says that the oldest of the existing press laws, PRB act is under consideration for change because it has not changed with the evolving technologies and new administrative and ownership models.
Ministry also said that the proposed act would have provisions to deal with foreign newspapers, and the FDI in the online news portals and web editions which were not at the time the act was enacted.
Till now the act has never been reviewed thoroughly since its enactment in 1867. No considerable action has been taken to change this archaic piece of legislation which continues to regulate press under older laws.
In 1947 certain changes were made but not enough to deal with the development of new technologies in media and they contrarily complicated the matter.
What is Press and Registration of Books Act?
Press and Registrar of Books Act (PRB Act) (XXV of 1867) (App,V) was passed in 1867 in the British rule to regulate printing presses and newspapers by a system of registration and to preserve copies of books and other printed matter. Though in the British ruling era, this act had also an object to censor the printed material that were printed against the British government and to ensure about the printed material must not a rebel material. But after the Independence, a number of minor amendments were made in this Act from time to time to make the Sections/Clauses compatible according to the changing situation. The only one major amendment was carried out in 1955 following the recommendations of the First Press Commission in 1953, consequent upon which the Office of the Registrar of Newspapers of India (RNI) was created and started functioning in 1956.
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