The News Caravan

Tag: expression

  • BBC cannot hide ‘economic offences’ under garb of freedom of expression: BJP

    BBC cannot hide ‘economic offences’ under garb of freedom of expression: BJP

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    New Delhi: The BJP said on Wednesday the BBC or any other organisation cannot hide their “economic offences” under the garb of freedom of expression.

    The British broadcaster is under the Income-Tax department probe for alleged tax avoidance by underreporting income and these are serious offences, BJP’s information technology department head Amit Malviya said.

    The BBC has to abide by Indian laws to operate in the country, he said.

    The BJP reaction came following the British government’s strong defence of the BBC and its editorial freedom in Parliament after the Income Tax department’s survey operations on the media corporation’s New Delhi and Mumbai offices last week.

    The BBC has said it is fully cooperating with the investigation and hopes to have the situation resolved as soon as possible.

    Malviya claimed that the international broadcaster has a chequered past and accused it of trying to meddle in the internal affairs of democracies, including India.

    He said that it once showed Russian tanks in Chechnya as Indian tanks in Kashmir to “suit its propaganda”.

    Malviya said India is the “mother of democracy” and has a strong judicial system to ensure freedom of expression.

    The I-T department had said in a statement following the survey that the income and profits disclosed by the organisation’s units were “not commensurate with the scale of operations in India”.

    A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) junior minister responded to an urgent question raised in the House of Commons in London on Tuesday to say that the government cannot comment on the allegations made by the I-T department over an ongoing investigation but stressed that media freedom and freedom of speech are essential elements of robust democracies.

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    #BBC #hide #economic #offences #garb #freedom #expression #BJP

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • Operations at BBC offices ‘affront to freedom of expression'”: Global watchdogs

    Operations at BBC offices ‘affront to freedom of expression’”: Global watchdogs

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    New York: Global media watchdogs and human rights bodies on Tuesday criticised the Indian government’s income tax survey operations at the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, saying the action “smacks of intimidation” and was a “blatant affront” to freedom of expression.

    The Income Tax officials described the action as part of an investigation into alleged tax evasion.

    Reacting to the Indian IT department’s action, the UK-based British public broadcaster said that it was “fully cooperating” with the authorities and hoped that the situation will be resolved “as soon as possible”.

    The New York-based independent non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged the Indian government to stop harassing journalists.

    Its Asia programme coordinator Beh Lih Yi said: “Raiding the BBC’s India offices in the wake of a documentary criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi smacks of intimidation”.

    “Indian authorities have used tax investigations as a pretext to target critical news outlets before, and must cease harassing BBC employees immediately, in line with the values of freedom that should be espoused in the world’s largest democracy,” CPJ said in a statement.

    “The searches by the tax authorities of the offices of @BBCWorld in #Inde , 3 weeks after the censorship of his documentary on @narendramodi, constitute an outrageous reprisal. RSF denounces these attempts to silence any criticism of the Indian government,” Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) tweeted.

    Amnesty International tweeted: “These raids are a blatant affront to freedom of expression.”

    “The Indian authorities are clearly trying to harass and intimidate the BBC over its critical coverage of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The overbroad powers of the Income Tax Department are repeatedly being weaponised to silence dissent. Last year, tax officials also raided the offices of a number of NGOs, including Oxfam India. These intimidatory acts, which undermine the right to freedom of expression in India, must end now,” it said in a statement.

    The South Asia Solidarity Group, a human rights organisation based in the UK, dubbed it a “blatantly vindictive move”.

    “In the wake of the government’s ban on sharing extracts or screening the documentary, this raid makes it clear that the Modi government will attack all those who criticise Narendra Modi, the BJP and those close to them,” said Mukti Shah, spokesperson for the group.

    In New Delhi, officials said the survey was being carried out to investigate issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies, and alleged that the BBC had been served with notices in the past but was “defiant and non-compliant” and had significantly diverted its profits.

    The IT action against the BBC comes weeks after the broadcaster aired a controversial two-part documentary -“India: The Modi Question”- on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 2002 Gujarat riots.

    The Indian government has branded the two-part series a “propaganda piece”, designed to push a particular “discredited narrative”.

    “The bias, lack of objectivity and continuing colonial mindset is blatantly visible,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said at the time it was aired in the UK last month.

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    #Operations #BBC #offices #affront #freedom #expression #Global #watchdogs

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )