Mangaluru: The best part of my waking up in the morning is to watch the news on my three favorite news channels namely-CNN-IBN, BBC and Al Jazeera. Among these three channels, Al Jazeera broadcasts some of the best news that you won’t see it in any other channels- and I never miss to watch this channel every single morning. But surprisingly for the last couple of days, Al Jazeera has been off the air, and a message keeps popping up the screen stating that the channel won’t be available from 22 April until 27 April. I wanted to know why? Browsing through the internet, I found the following information, which I want to share with other viewers of Al Jazeera. The report stated :
“International news channel Al Jazeera was today (22 April) forced to go off air in the country for five days as the Indian government penalised it for repeatedly showing wrong maps of India. Since then Al Jazeera has been only showing a blank screen with a message saying that “as instructed by the ministry of Information and Broadcasting, this channel will not be available from 00.01 hours on 22nd April till 00.01 hours on 27th April 2015.”
“Earlier in an order, I&B ministry had said that it had come to its notice that Al Jazeera had shown a wrong map of India in some of its broadcasts in 2013 and 2014, after which the matter was referred to Surveyor General of India (SGI). The SGI had observed that in some of the maps displayed by Al Jazeera, “a portion of Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir (i.e. PoK and Aksai Chin) has not been shown as a part of Indian territory.” The channel also did not show Lakshadweep and Andaman Islands in some of the maps, the SGI said.
“The SGI also said that the maps were not in accordance with the Survey of India copyright map and is also against the National Map policy, 2005 and map restriction policy issued by Ministry of Defence from time to time. The Ministry of External Affairs also pointed out similar airing of a wrong map by the channel. In their reply to a Show Cause Notice, Al Jazeera said that all maps that are displayed by them are generated by an internationally known software used by Global News Providers”.
“The channel also added that it takes Indian government’s concerns about maps very seriously and accordingly reviews all its India and Pakistan maps to ensure compatibility with recent official UN map. As per the order of the I&B ministry, the Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) which was also attended by representatives of the MEA, after deliberations, held that the channel had clearly violated the provisions of the programme code and recommended to prohibit transmission or re-transmission of the channel throughout India for five days”.
Hope they will get it right this time.