February 15, 2025 • Makkal Adhikaram
The police are paid by the taxpayers! It should not be used to provide security to private parties, not to serve the public: Madras High Court
The Madras High Court has issued an important order to the Tamil Nadu government and the DGP. This is indeed an order of importance. CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ruled that government employees should be paid from the taxpayer’s money to serve the society and the general public and not to provide security to private parties.
The essence of this is that according to the law, the police should give priority to the welfare of the society and serve the public. This is really On behalf of People’s Authority, I congratulate the Madras High Court order. The Madras High Court has also directed the state government to give concessions to newspapers and advertisements only for social purpose newspapers out of the taxpayers’ money.
This law and that law are the same. That is, in the name of freedom of the press, these corporate newspapers are doing commission to the private political party newspapers and putting many news with commercial purpose in the newspaper, saying that this is also a social purpose, fooling the journalism and fooling the people, in the name of press freedom, these corporate newspapers are made as commissions to the officials and agents of the department. Only those agents know. Giving this percentage! No concessions or advertisements are given to social welfare newspapers. They can’t give percentage. besides
Journalism is for social good. Why are they advertising through agencies here? What is the need to give? Here, journalism means journalism and every newspaper has to give concessions and advertisements on the basis of its quality, the truthfulness of the news and its social purpose.
But the news department has been giving concessions and advertisements in the government’s policy decision. It is implementing that policy decision only for the newspapers of its choice. In the name of daily, the political party is giving concessions and advertisements including bus passes to newspapers and newspapers with commercial motives.
Till date, the loss of lakhs of crores to the government and its benefits to the people and society are very low. Circulation is not a big deal if there are advertisements, and the corporate press pays a commission and gets these advertisements through the agencies. What is the need to give news advertisements through agencies and not directly to the press? Why are they giving these advertisements to agencies? Is it a business motive? Or is it socially motivated?
Also, will these agencies give advertisements based on social purpose? Or will they give it to business oriented magazines? Or will these agencies give advertisements to those whom they are pointing fingers at? On what basis do they give? Also, I have been reporting these facts to the department on behalf of People’s Power magazine for many years.
But former news director Bhaskara Pandian told me that only a few directors of the department understand this fact and you are justified in asking. But what should the current director Vaidyanathan do for you? Say that. I definitely do. That’s all. Then G.O. (G.O.) It should be brought to the Journalists Welfare Board. How will they bring it?
If corporate press executives and journalists are members as key executives, what about this social welfare press? Do they give promotions? What I want is that any newspaper, be it corporate, social welfare magazine or common man’s magazine, give concessions and advertisements to newspapers based on the merit of quality. This is fair.
Just as the Madras High Court has examined these facts and given orders to the police, these newspapers should be based on social purpose. Therefore, the Madras High Court has given special attention to this issue and removed the huge plight of journalism for the benefit of society, by dismantling its loopholes and by political power. They have suppressed the freedom of the press. It should also be saved and for the benefit of society, this timely circulation law should be brought online.
Even if the circulation is brought to the online newspapers, it is only for the news for social purpose, the advertisements of the news department should be as advertisements, but for the commercial magazines, political party magazines, and the newspapers that cheat by circulating cinema news, only if the advertisements of the news department are stopped, the waste of crores of people’s tax money will be avoided.
Moreover, these concessions and advertisements should not be a policy decision for the press due to political interference. Besides, just as the police are paid from the taxpayers’ money, these newspapers are getting concessions and advertisements from the taxpayers’ money and running a newspaper to advertise them and encourage them to be good people, for more than 50 years, many newspapers in the field of journalism have given about hundreds of crores of rupees in advertisements to this news industry.
This is a loss of lakhs of crores to the government so far to the social welfare and the public, its benefits to the people are very, very low. If a court committee is set up to investigate this, the truth will definitely come to the court.
The People’s Power continues to publish this news. But the media officials are ignoring this. Journalism should be important for the people and social welfare, not those who run newspapers for political parties, those who run newspapers for business interests, should not use concessions and advertisements from the taxpayer’s money. The press should not give importance to it.
It is not wrong for them to run it with their own money, but the people and the press should not cheat the big newspaper by showing circulation in the taxpayers’ money. If only the High Court could take up the issue as a case of simultaneity! Today newspapers for social good can have a legitimacy in the country.
This is our humble request from the Madras High Court on behalf of the Social Welfare Journalists Federation and the makkal adhikaram Magazine.
