Muzzling The Media - Times Of India: "What better way to control the Press than to decide the salary of newspaper employees? How can a journalist write fearlessly against a government when he knows that it is this same government that decides his salary? Successive governments in India have found a simple way to try to control the Press: set up a statutory wage board for newspapers, fix unrealistically high wages enforceable under law.
The Indian newspaper industry is the only industry in the country to have a statutory wage board at all! Even other media sectors like TV, radio, internet, etc, do not have this retrograde practice. Why, in this era of liberalisation where licences, quotas, permits etc are being dismantled in all spheres of economic activity, would it be that only the newspaper industry has wages fixed by the government; particularly when they are not based on market demand and supply, and are without consideration for skills and professional qualifications?"
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