Press Council of India reconstituted with 29 members

New Delhi, Jan 16 (UNI) The Press Council of India (PCI), headed by former Supreme Court Judge Ganendra Narayan Ray, has been reconstituted in its tenth term for a three-year period with a strength of 29 members, including 20 from the Press and five Members of Parliament.

The reconstituted PCI, which has already become functional with effect from January 7 this year, has also one nominee each from the University Grants Commission (UGC), Sahitya Akademi and the Bar Council of India.

The five MPs of the PCI are: Dr. Sebastian Paul, Mr Bharatsinh Madhavsinh Solanki and Mr M A Kharbela Swain (all Lok Sabha) and Mr Yashwant Sinha and Dr Prabha Thakur (both Rajya Sabha).

The nominees of UGC, Bar Council of India and Sahitya Akademi are Dr Pranjay Guha Thakurta, Mr Milan Kumar Dey and Dr Lalit Mangotra, respectively.

The five editors in the PCI are: Vishnu Nagar, Uttam Chandra Sharma, Vijay Kumar Chopra, Sheetla Singh, Ms Suman Gupta and Yogesh Chandra Halan.

There are seven working journalists other than editors. They are: K Sreenivas Reddy, Mihir Ganguly, M K Ajith Kumar, Joginder Chawla, G. Prabhakaran, Kalyan Barooah and S N Sinha.

The sole representative in the category of new agency managers is Mr V S Chandrasekar of the Press Trust of India (PTI).

In the category of owners and managers of big, medium and small newspapers, there are six representatives; They are Hormusji N.

Cama, T. Venkatram Reddy, Anil Jugal Kishore Agarwal, Kundan Raman Lal Vyas, Ramesh Gupta and Sushil Jhalani.

PCI is a statutory autonomous body established for the purpose of preserving the freedom of the press, and of maintaining and improving the standards of newspapers and news agencies in India.

UNI/SKS MSJ KP1746