MediaOne, a Malayalam news channel, had been banned by the Centre. The Kerala high court affirmed the ban on Tuesday, dismissing the petition challenging the ban. In response to security concerns, the information and broadcasting ministry suspended the channel on Monday. The station is owned and operated by Jamaat-e-Islami and Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited.
Following a thorough review of the details submitted by the Union government, the court said the charges were serious. Additionally, it stated that the decision to deny security clearance was based on intelligence input from various agencies. The channel, however, insisted that clearance by the ministry of home affairs was only required when getting a new permission/license, not when renewing the license. Consequently, the government responded that security clearances ‘once issued cannot be continued indefinitely’.
Uplinking and downlinking are subject to the home ministry’s security clearance, according to I&B norms. Such a challenge is not the first time the channel has faced. MediaOne and another Malayalam news network, Asianet, were suspended for 48 hours for their coverage of communal violence in Delhi in 2020, with the official orders saying they covered the violence in a way that it highlighted the attack in places of worship and was inclined towards one particular community’.
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