eNarada, Bengaluru, March 11, 2017
It seems that the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is still disturbed by the MLC Govindaraju diary issue! In his letter to journalists (which was read out by Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy), CM said that the journalists were going gung ho over the alleged leak of MLC Govindaraju’s diary even without verifying the credentials. Siddaramaiah was the chief guest at Karnataka Media Akademi awards wherein he honoured the recipients of the 2016 Kannada Media Akademi awards on Saturday. As CM had a busy day, his written speech was read out by his cabinet colleague Mr Reddy. In his speech, CM took a dig at journalists saying that many were not doing the due diligence before publishing/airing news and this was turning out to be a dangerous trend.
Siddaramaiah first pointed out the diary issue which had caused the political tsunami in Karnataka. The CM said that many media houses were passing judgements on the diary entry (which had mentioned initials like RG, DVG and so on against payments) without realising as to whose diary was it and who had sized it or who had leaked it. He then shifted his attention to another headache for the government-the steel flyover (which Siddaramaiah government had to cancel after the opposition alleged that Congress government had received huge kick-back for construction of the flyover and this kick-back was used for Congress fund in Uttar Pradesh elections). He said that the media went against the government without proactively realising as to how to take forward the infrastructure projects. CM also referred to the recent news coverage of the tweet war (where in Darshan had tweeted that he and Sudeep were mere actors and there was no more friendship between them) and was sad at the way the entire episode was blown out of proportions. CM’s speech also mimicked at certain news channels where the debates were not just limited to expressing views but looked like passing judgements.
Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah also felicitated the following journalists; H R Sreesha, Shantala Dharmaraj, G Veeranna, Siddiqui Aldoori, Ronald Fernandes, Cheeni Purushotham, A C Prabhakar, Ujjini Rudrappa, Hemanthkumar, Ramaswamy (Ee Sanje– Ramanagar), Shankerappa Husanappa Chalavadi (Hucha Patrike – Bagalkot), Nagaraja Sunagara (Udaya TV – Dharwad), Anil Kumar Hosamani (Bahujananayaka-Vijayapura), Malathesha Angoora (Kaurava Patrike – Haveri) and .K H Chandru (photographer – Mysuru). The other awards bagged by journalists for their effective writing were; Andolana’ award (most remarkable district newspaper)-Shivamogga Times, Abhimani award (best writing on social issues)- Chandrashekar More (Udayavani) for his writings ‘Sankastadalli Kaujalagi Ningamma Parijatha Company’, ‘Mysuru Diganta’ award (‘humanitarian issues)-C G Rajiv (Vijaya Karnataka) for Enne Nammooranne Nasha Madtha ide, Aragini’ Award (best cinematic journalism)- Snehapriya Nagaraja and Dr B R Ambedkar Mookanayaka award (columnist for exceptional writing on downtrodden-community)-Dr Nataraj Huliar.
