Derogatory and vulgar speeches of Tamil actors anger Indian journalists

PodUniversal Edition 89

Few days back Dinamalar, one of the leading Tamil dailies published a news report about some leading actresses of the Tamil cinema world running a prostitution racket. The report was based on a statement by another actor, Bhuvaneswari, who was earlier arrested by Chennai city police for running a high profile sex racket from her house. The daily published an apology to the actors prominently the next day even before such a demand was made.

Angered by the Dinamalar report, South Indian Film actors association filed a police complaint against the daily. On the same day, i.e. on 7th October 2009 evening, few police men entered into the newspaper office without uniform and without warrant and arrested the News editor Lenin.

He was booked under Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Women Harassment (Prevention) Act - a law enacted for entirely different purposes - and was let out on bail last Friday, after protests from the journalists across the country.

In a meeting organised by South Indian Film Actors association, last week some leading actors spoke in a derogative, vulgar and inflammatory manner about journalists and their family members.

Journalist bodies like Chennai Press Club and Chennai Union of Journalists then filed a police complaint against the actors, but police are yet to take action on it. Since the police did not take any action against the actors who used vulgar languages, the journalist bodies have now gone to Honble High Court seeking direction to the police to register a case against the actors. The Honble High Court has adjourned the case till 19th October, at the request of Police side.

Please listen to the podcast feature on this incident. We have taken the views of Mr Babu Jayakumar (News Editor of New Indian Express), Ms Indirani Singh (wife of a senior journalist), Mr Pandey (Chief Reporter of Dinamalar) and Mr S Narendra (former Information and Media Advisor to Prime Minister)

Please click 'play' to listen to the pod-feature. The audio streaming will be smooth in broadband connections. If audio streaming is not smooth, right click this link and save the target/link to your desktop as mp3 format and then listen. (12 m 40 s)

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