Who after Razdan in PTI?

BY IMPACT Staff

In the heart of the Capital, off Rajiv Chowk and sandwiched between the imposing Reserve Bank of India building to its right, the colonial-era All India Radio establishment in front, is the sprawling, brown-and-peach, glassesstacked- over-concrete-blocks Press Trust of India building. It’s quiet inside by all standards, but for the footfalls of journalists stepping out for a cuppa or a bread pakora at the tea stall hugging the gate opposite Parliament’s annex building. By evening, even the potbellied guard feels the silence of dusk creeping in, as he quietly gets up and opens the gates every time a vehicle has to go in or out.

Looks can be deceptive. Few buildings in New Delhi hold so much meaning for the Press in the country as the PTI Building, whose life is charted in Independent India in the last 60-plus years, and meant to be a reflection of democracy. But alas! PTI, the way we know it, given the dependence the rest of the media has on it, is far from what it professes to be – a non-profit cooperative news agency among more than 450 Indian newspapers, with over 1,000 writers across 150 offices.

Its current CEO cum Editor-in-Chief, M K Razdan became PTI’s general manager in 1995, after serving the organization as its bureau chief in its one-member bureaus first in London, then New York. He superannuated subsequently to become PTI’s contractual CEO-cum- editor-in-chief. Insiders say he’s already got a fresh contract drawn in 2011 which will last him till 2016 or when he is 71. This is despite Razdan’s appeal at the meetings of the Board of Directors to focus on the future of the news agency and infuse new blood. At the same time, an insider says, “Razdan has never groomed successors.”

Agency insiders who do not wish to be named say “the organization is bereft of any rules and  regulations governing its employees, in the absence of which it is being run on the whims and fancies of its office-bearers”. Take the case of PTI withholding encashment of casual leave of five staff members in 2003-2004. Although the amount payable was less than Rs 4,000 per member, they were withheld just because the said employees happened to be office bearers of the union.

This made the staff members approach the court. The counsel of the news agency told the court that the staff members were under suspension during the period, no such benefit could be extended to them. But, as they say, better sense always prevails, and the court supported the employees.

“Don’t be surprised with such cases related to PTI, dig and you will find a dime-a-dozen of them. Perhaps this is one institution of journalism that holds no law of the land dear to it. Even ethics, it’s past PTI. You will rarely find PTI sacking a staff member; they are only forced to go. Seniors are chastised and berated openly in front of the juniors, favoured juniors are sided with in front of their seniors, parochialism is promoted, there are sub-groups within groups ready to tear at one another – all under the very nose of the management. And the management? It seems to be growing, smug with this divide and rule policy. People are not encouraged to stay here unless one can suck up,” says a senior journalist who’s been working for many years with PTI and finds himself sidelined.

Understandably, according to a newsletter circulated within the PTI, as many as 70 people have left the

organization in the past one year. According to another estimate, a staggering number of over 700 journalists have quit PTI since Razdan became the general manager of the organization about 17 years ago. According to journalist Neeraj Bhushan, who was fired from the Press Trust of India Ltd in 2003 ‘illegally and unjustifiably’, “Razdan heads a media company where the Board of Directors are owners or editors of topmost Indian news organizations and where the journalists and other staff members find themselves no less helpless, demoralized, frustrated and depressed”.

He adds: “The Human Resource Departments and the Personnel Departments merely issue threatening memos to the journalists instead of strengthening management-journalist relations.” Pointing out to the malaise at PTI that is likely to set the trend in Indian media, Bhushan points out that Indian journalists keep surrendering to the dictates of their managements and that it “is very sad that trade unions in the Indian media companies have also surrendered to their managements while the neo journalists lack awareness about their rights”.

Indeed, the new entrants in Indian journalism have little or no time to know about their rights. “They do not open their mouths even if they are not given appointment letters. In some cases, they get huge salaries and perks to keep their eyes closed vis-à-vis their rights. Working Journalists and other  Newspaper Employees (Condition of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955, would surely be a surprise booklet of 30-odd pages for them, what to talk of Industrial Disputes Act,” says Bhushan. I am only hoping that the illustrious names – including Times Group Managing Director Vineet Jain – in the PTI Board of Directors will take note of these gaps within the organization, lest it goes the United News of India (UNI) way.

Last heard, either the UNI journalists were leaving or languishing as salaries and allowances were not paid for months on end. The PTI Board of Directors needs to find a Razdan replacement. Fast.

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