HYDERABAD: Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have locked horns over the archives of newspapers. The Press Academy in the erstwhile State of AP digitised over 20 lakh pages of various newspapers and magazines. With the ongoing tussle between the sibling States, the archives are not accessible to the people. Several researchers, general public and students access the archives section of the Press Academy for the old newspapers. However, the same has not been available for over six months now.
After the division of the Press Academy, the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which maintains the data, asked the Media Academy of Telangana State to get permission from AP, to host the archives on its website. The sources in Telangana Press Academy say that they had the originals with them. Despite this, the NIC was not giving the data.
It may be recalled that the digitisation of old newspapers like Golconda Patrika, Andhra Patrika and magazines like Bharathi was started when Potturi Venkateswara Rao was the combined AP Press Academy chairman. The digitisation was completed when Devulapalli Amar was the combined Press Academy chairman. In fact, Amar handed over the digital sets to Vetapalem and Gowthami libraries.
With the non-availability of old newspapers on the website, several intellectuals feel that it was not for the Press Academies of both AP and TS to share the information and host the digital copies on their respective websites. Some senior journalists also suggested the Chairman of Andhra Pradesh Press Academy, D Sreenath, get the digital copies either from Vetapalem library or Gowthami library and host them on the Academy website. When contacted, the Media Academy of Telangana State chairman Allam Narayana said that the issue would be resolved in the coming week.