Prasar Bharati threatens to cancel PTI's subscription

Prasar Bharati threatens to cancel PTI's subscription : The Report

News agency PTI had tweeted a statement by Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Egyptian on Friday evening, contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim that China did not infiltrate into India. Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has since threatened to sever all ties with PTI.

After interviewing the Indian ambassador to China, the official broadcaster Prasar Bharati has called pti a traitor/Anti-National and threatened to sever all ties with him.

Chinese forces need to go back to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, PTI quoted Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Egyptian as saying.

In fact, the Egyptian statement is contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim that no one rammed into India.

Even after 24 hours, neither Ambassador Vikram Egyptian nor the Ministry of External Affairs have dismissed the veracity of the PTI tweet.

The Egyptian statement has embarrassed the government as it contradicts the prime minister's statement at an all-party meeting last week on the issue of border tensions.

In another PTI tweet, the Egyptian says, "China must stop attempting to encroach on the Indian part of the LAC and to erect structures."

His statement also goes against Modi's claim that China had not infiltrated before.

A PTI tweet from the Indian ambassador to China, which has now been deleted.
A PTI tweet from the Indian ambassador to China, which has now been deleted.

Pti had also tweeted a third tweet which was deleted on Saturday morning. However, neither the Foreign Ministry nor the Egyptians said their statement was misrepresented.

"There is only one solution to the military tension on the LAC and that China should stop building new structures," the Egyptian was quoted as saying by PTI.

However, it seems that a kind of agreement was reached between the Ministry of External Affairs and PTI after the news agency released parts of the interview on Saturday evening, as these specific statements made by the Egyptians were not included in the PTI news.

The government is already angry with PTI over interviewing the Chinese ambassador to India and is preparing to take action against him.

On Saturday, Prasar Bharati officials told reporters that the public broadcaster is sending a strict letter to PTI ahead of its next board meeting, which has sparked deep outrage over anti-national reporting by PTI.

It is not possible to continue relations with PTI due to anti-country reporting authorities

He said public broadcasters have been supporting PTI with huge annual fees running in several crores for decades. At the same time, the news agency has been adamant not to increase its fees since 2016. Prasar Bharati is now reviewing its relationship with PTI in view of PTI's behaviour. The final decision in this regard will be communicated soon.

When asked about the verdict and the reasons for the treasonous, the Prasar Bharati official said, "China coverage."

Asked if it pertains to the interview of two ambassadors conducted by PTI? "Yes," he said.

Earlier this week, leaving behind the rest of the Indian media, PTI interviewed Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Wedong and talked to him about the violent clashes in Galwan, Ladakh.

The Chinese Embassy had submitted a shorter version of the interview on its website but PTI faced controversies over not printing the full interview.

This was also accepted by PTI. The next day, the Foreign Ministry responded to ambassador Sun's statements. Later on Friday, the news agency's Beijing correspondent KJM Verma interviewed the Egyptian.

For the past one week, all indian government spokespersons have been saying that tensions with China are decreasing, military deployments are being reduced and there is no Chinese encroachment.

However, defence affairs journalists have been consistently quoting Indian military sources as saying that China has taken the lead over several parts of the LAC, including Pangong So, Galwan and Depsang.

Lt. Gen. SL Narasimhan, head of the official Chinese think-tank at the Foreign Ministry last Friday, told The Wire that the reports were being misconstrued and exaggerated.

However, the two Egyptian tweets that PTI had run on Twitter don't seem to be the case.

Prasar Bharati's recent attempt to ban PTI is not the first time. Earlier in 2016, the Modi government had asked mk Rajdan, a long-time editor-in-chief of the news agency, to appoint an official nominated member on his retirement.