India 2018

Mass Communication 431
such programmes. Some reality shows have children as participants who are
under tremendous pressure to perform. Also, children who are left to watch
these shows on television can often be baffled at the display and can take
them as behaviour expected out of everyone, especially themselves and their
peers.
A large number of misleading advertisements make unsubstantiated
claims about the impact of certain products. Ministry of I&B has cautioned
that advertisements should not dwell on a product’s seemingly miraculous
properties that cannot be proven. This is in violation of the Advertising
Code, particularly rule 7(5) contained in the Cable Television Networks
Rules framed under the Cable Television Networks Regulation Act, 1995.
Registrar of Newspapers for India
www.rni.nic.in
The Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) is an attached
office of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Under its Statutory
and derivative functions, it verifies and approves titles of newspapers,
registers them, checks and establishes circulation claims. It also submits to
the Secretary, I & B by 31st December every year the “Press in India
Report”, highlighting the state of Print Media in the country; the report is
subsequently published under the title “Press in India”. Under its nonstatutory
functions, the RNI issues Eligibility Certificates for import of
newsprint, to actual users which are registered with RNI as well as Essentiality
Certificates for import of printing machinery, etc.
Title Verification
RNI receives applications of the intending publishers for title verification,
duly forwarded by the DM concerned and processes them for title verification
as per the proviso to Section 6 of the PRB Act. During 2015, RNI scrutinized
15,293 applications for verification of titles, of which 9,272 titles were
verified. To facilitate the applicants RNI has started online application filling
facility on its website. For further processing by the DM concerned, the
applicant is required to take out a printout of the filled application and
submit to DM concerned for forwarding to RNI. The applicants are intimated
through SMS and e-mail at application receipt stage and title verification
stage at RNI to facilitate the applicants and ensure transparency. The status
of title applications can be checked on RNI website. Discrepancy letters and
title verification letters can also be downloaded from RNI website.
De-Blocking of Titles
After getting the title verified, the publishers are required to get the title
registered. If the documents for registration are not received in RNI in 2
years, the title gets de-blocked and is available for verification to any
intending applicant.