Centre nominates 13 media professionals to Press Council of India

The Centre has nominated 13 media professionals, including six editors and seven working journalists, to the Press Council of India (PCI), according to a notification issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The nominations have been made under the Press Council Act, 1978, which governs the composition of the statutory body tasked with safeguarding press freedom and maintaining standards in newspapers and news agencies.

The six editors nominated to the council are Pradeep Kumar Jain, Sayed Raza Husain Rizvi, Ankur Dua, Aparna Shukla, Raj Parwana, also known as Narender Singh, and Vinod Bajpai.

The seven working journalists nominated under the category other than editors are Vinod Kohli, Geetartha Pathak, Prajnananda Chaudhuri, Kingshuk Pramanik, C K Nayak, Prasanna Kumar Mohanty and Bijoy Kakchingtabam.

The nominations have been made under Sections 5(3)(a) and 5(5), read with Section 6(1) of the Press Council Act, 1978.

The Press Council of India is headed by retired Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai. Its membership includes representatives from different sections of the media, Parliament and institutions such as the Bar Council of India, the University Grants Commission and the Sahitya Akademi.

Established under the Press Council Act, 1978, the PCI is an autonomous statutory body mandated to preserve press freedom and maintain and improve standards in newspapers and news agencies across the country.