nationpaper

Updated: Jun 22, 2016 10:44 IST

NEW DELHI: A news agency linked with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological mentor, looks set for a major expansion with some help from the NDA government.

A new policy on print media advertisements has included Hindusthan Samachar as one of the three news agencies that newspapers could subscribe to score points to qualify for government ads. The other two agencies are the Press Trust of India (PTI) and the United News of India (UNI).

Hindusthan Samachar was started in 1948 as a multilingual agency by senior RSS pracharak Shivram Shankar Apte, who along with Sangh ideologue MS Golwalkar co-founded the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).

But the agency ran into trouble with the Indira Gandhi government during Emergency in the 1970s and was eventually shut down in 1986.

The RSS started working on its revival in 2000 when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was in power. With the return of a BJP government, Hindusthan Samachar — with its head office above a temple in New Delhi’s Paharganj — hopes to expand its reach. It will soon shift to a swanky office in Noida.

The inclusion is expected to raise subscription revenue for the Sangh’s news agency. Over 8,000 publications — mostly small and medium — are empanelled with the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity to get government ads. Last year, the government spent more than Rs 400 crore on ads in print media.

A senior government official defended the entry of RSS-backed Hindusthan Samachar into the list, saying it was done on merit, not ideology. Incidentally, the agency does not have a single correspondent accredited to the Press Information Bureau.

The agency, however, welcomed the decision saying that new policy has acknowledged its contribution and breaks the monopoly of certain institutions.

“This is for the first time that the government has recognised a news agency that is serving the vernacular press. It is a welcome decision. I would not like to comment on why the previous governments did not do this,” agency’s chief editor and CEO Rakesh Manjul told HT.

He argued that Hindusthan Samachar is providing news in regional languages to medium scale media houses and others since 1948 and its inclusion along with the PTI and UNI was justified.