The News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) on Monday, 27 February, pulled up news channels News18India, Times Now and Zee News for airing communally charged programs and misreporting.
Zee News: The media body said that Zee News was responsible for targeting Muslims for over population by sharing selective data.
The complaint against the TV news challenge alleged that it had aired visuals of massive Muslim crowds and portrayed statistics bout the Hindu-Muslim population so as to make Muslims seem responsible for population explosion.
Former Supreme Court judge AK Sikri, while passing the order, observed that the broad caster had indeed added a communal tinge to over population. He said this after going through their programme titled "Jansankhya Badhotari ke liye ek dharma ko zimmedar thehrana jayaz hai?"
The order added that, in spirit of balance and neutrality, the broadcaster, instead of just saying that the Muslim population "would be approximately 310 million by 2050," should have mentioned "that the growth in the Hindu population, would be approximately 1.3 billion by 2050."
"It would have been factually correct and accurate for the broadcaster to also inform the viewers about the fact as to the growth rate of the various communities, which found mention in the Report instead of selectively picking up the statistics from the said Report."Justice AK Sikri