NEW DELHI: A concern was raised in Rajya Sabha over the plight of journalists and news channels closing down, rendering thousands of employees unemployed.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Ali Anwar Ansari (JD-U) said almost half a dozen news channels have closed down in last few months throwing out thousands of journalists, non-journalists and technicians literally on streets.
Ansari, who himself was a journalist, before joining politics, said that while the profession of media looks glamorous from outside the kind of "risk and uncertainty" involved in this is not to be seen anywhere else.
"Any chit fund company or builder launches news channel and suddenly closes it down some day. While a journalist gives voice to the sufferings of the whole world, no one is here to pay attention to his sufferings. When his bad phase begins, even political leaders stop taking his calls," Ansari said.
He said that newsmen have to face police batons and cited the instance of their bashing up in Haryana recently during the arrest of a controversial godman there.
Ansari said while one journalist died after the lathi charge, another is admitted in ICU and dozens others were injured.
"Nobody is there to take care of them," he said, lamenting that there is no system in place to regulate this profession.