TUWJF urges equality in granting accreditation cards for Urdu journos

Hyderabad: Telangana State Media Academy and State Media Accreditation Committee chairman K Srinivas Reddy assured to consider the demands of Telangana Urdu Working Journalists' Federation (TUWJF) positively.

The TUWJF state president M A Majid along with state general secretary Syed Ghouse Mohiuddin and others has met the chairman on Monday and submitted the memorandum expressing the injustice met to the Urdu Journalists with the controversial G.O 239 issued by the I&PR department. They alleged it is facing linguistic discrimination, though Urdu is the second official language of the state and Urdu is the second biggest media of the state after Telugu.

According to the TUWJF general secretary Syed Ghouse Mohiuddin, G.O. 239 barred the decades-old practice of equality in the accreditation card sanction process.

The mandal-level accreditation cards to Urdu journalists were sanctioned till 2014. The Government used to treat all journalists equally irrespective of language and issue mandal-level accreditation cards to Urdu journalists on par with Telugu.

However, the government bought G.O. 239 and stopped mandal-level accreditation cards to Urdu journalists in the state. Meanwhile, Telugu journalists are enjoying the facility of mandal-level accreditation cards.

The other issue raised is that G.O. 239 facilitated all Telugu Unions, photographers, video cameramen & Small papers associations in the State Media Accreditation Committee (SMAC) and District Media Accreditation Committee (DMAC). “Still, the second largest media of Telangana state is ignored and Urdu Media is not included,” he said.

They requested to create and include the Telangana Urdu Working Journalists Federation in SMAC & DMAC or at least nominate Urdu Journalists in SMAC & and all DMACs.