India's government has nominated 13 new members to the Press Council, six editors and seven working journalists. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry issued its notice on Oct. 7.
The editors named are Pradeep Kumar Jain, Sayed Raza Husain Rizvi, Ankur Dua, Aparna Shukla, Raj Parwana/Narender Singh and Vinod Bajpai. The working journalists who are not editors are Vinod Kohli, Geetartha Pathak, Prajnananda Chaudhuri, Kingshuk Pramanik, C K Nayak, Prasanna Kumar Mohanty and Bijoy Kakchingtabam.
The council remains chaired by retired Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai. It is an autonomous statutory body established under the Press Council Act of 1978. Its remit includes safeguarding press freedom and improving standards at newspapers and news agencies.
Before the new appointments, the council had 14 members, including five lawmakers, six representatives of newspaper owners and three experts from the Bar Council of India, the University Grants Commission and the Sahitya Akademi. The new nominations add working journalists and editors to its membership.