By NJ Thakuria

Guwahati: Maintaining the demand for all due benefits to media employees including the journalists in accordance with the guidelines of Majithia Wage Board, an Assam based scribe body urged the managements of media houses in northeast India to implement the latest wage board recommendations to show respect to the Supreme Court (of India).

Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA), in a statement, cliamed that  barring the Assam Tribune group of publications, no media house in the region has so far implemented the Majithia board recommendations even though the apex court of the country had asked every newspaper and news agency management in India to offer statutory benefits to their employees following the new wage board directives.

Lately, two established media groups of Guwahati have shown interest to implement the recommendations of the Majithia Wage Board, which we would like to appreciate herewith,” said the  JFA statemnt endorsed by its president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria, adding that other media houses of the region should also follow the direction at the earliest.

The alienated region, comprising eight States namely Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Sikkim, supports over hundred major newspapers in different languages. The media enterprise of the trouble-torn region offers direct employment opportunity for more than ten thousand employees.

The scribe body also appealed to those media groups not to play tricks with the interests of their employees by offering illogical and unethical proposals. The JFA pointed out that a number of media groups in different parts of the country had asked most of their senior employees either to resign for no reason or give written consent accepting whatever benefits the owners could provide, implying to ignore the new wage board benefits.

The media persons engaged in newspapers and news agencies across the country should get united over the issue and fight for their dues.

Moreover, they should also continue raising their voices for logical benefits to their counterparts in the electronic media as well,”

concluded the statement.