Parliament panel to review Press Council law

The standing committee on communications and information technology will look at ways to widen the purview of the Press Council of India Act to bring social media such as Facebook, online media channels, and YouTube channels under its purview, people familiar with the matter said, adding that it will also explore ways to enhance the powers of the statutory body. “This Parliamentary Committee will review fake news, the status of journalists, the new online media laws of the British and European Union, the losses being caused to IT due to the World Trade Organization agreement, the status of newspapers, the laws of broadcasting, the copyright act, the censor board, the status of film artists, our committee will also look into the Press Council Act,” he tweeted. In the last Lok Sabha, the standing committee on communications and IT, headed by the Shiv Sena’s Prataprao Jadhav suggested making PCI into a wider media council, a recommendation rejected by the government on the grounds that other media platforms have self regulatory bodies that perform the same task. The officials cited in the first instance said The Press Council of India Act of 1978 restricts the powers of the PCI in two ways.