In the recent past India’s premier news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) has been caught for fake news items. Imagine one’s surprise when the agency’s Editor-in-Chief Vijay Joshi himself has fallen into a controversy for making false claims on his qualification. Parliament’s sacred rules for grant of media pass were bypassed for Vijay Joshi recently. Based on Joshi’s false claim, he was given a permanent pass having a Radio Frequency (RF) Tag, despite him having never covered Parliament proceedings.
The “claim” of having covered Parliament is a total lie by Vijay Joshi and it can be easily established by perusing his resume and his career record.
According to the rules, a journalist can be entitled to media pass with RF Tag only if he/ she has covered either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha with temporary Session Pass for at least 10 sessions continuously. But in the case of Joshi, this Rule was thrown into the dustbin and he was issued a Permanent Pass with RF Tag on the basis of his claim that he has covered Parliament. In fact, a note prepared by the Lok Sabha’s Press Section mentions that Vijay Joshi has “claimed” that he has covered Parliament. Normally every journalist and his/ her organization has to provide proof for the experience in Parliament coverage, which can be cross-checked with the attendance register kept at the entry of media gallery of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
But was any effort made to verify whether the 55-year-old Joshi actually covered parliament at any point in his career? Clearly, no such thing was done and the pass was given on the basis of a false affidavit given by Joshi, India’s premier news agency – PTI – which was supposed to transmit truth only.
The “claim” of having covered Parliament is a total lie by Vijay Joshi and it can be easily established by perusing his resume and his career record. Joshi had joined PTI earlier in 1986 as a trainee journalist and worked on the Desk. During that period, Joshi not only did not cover Parliament but did not even enter the Parliament complex. He might have seen the Parliament building from his PTI Desk’s office windows, say veteran PTI staffers. In 1989, Joshi quit PTI and joined the Associated Press. Soon after he was posted by the Associated Press to East Asian countries and was based in Singapore. So there was no chance of him covering the Indian parliament.
He was back to PTI only in February 2017 as it’s Editor in Chief with the blessings of the outgoing Chief MK Razdan, who controlled PTI for decades as his personal fiefdom with all sorts of political and media maneuvering. Actually, the then Executive Editor VS Chandrasekar was the most eligible person for the Editor-in-Chief post. But by his cunning ways, Razdan eased out the senior most Chandrasekar and air-dropped Vijay Joshi who was abroad for more than 28 years. Within two days of Joshi’s appointment, Executive Editor Chandrasekar who served his entire career with PTI was unceremoniously shunted out. The PTI staffers say that by the second week of February 2017, Chandrasekar was given marching orders in a “very cruel” way by the PTI Board, consisting of many newspaper owners. Chandrasekar now works with another news agency IANS.
Here the question is why Parliament authorities knowingly ignored the fake experience claim by Vijay Joshi. Giving false declaration is a crime and fit for registering a criminal case against Vijay Joshi.
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[…] 13th November 2017, PGurus, an online portal had reported how the Editor-in-Chief of PTI news agency may have lied about his experience to acquire a […]
[…] 13th November 2017, PGurus, an online portal had reported how the Editor-in-Chief of PTI news agency may have lied about his experience to acquire a […]
[…] on November 13 detailed the fraud committed Vijay Joshi in getting the permanent pass by making false claims on his experience in covering Parliament. Vijay Joshi actually never covered Parliament and was […]
Mr. Das
You are very true once upon a time PTI was an organization which was always looked up to . But, regretfully since MKR occupied the CEO& EIC post things changed . May be the story is badly written but there could be an iota of truth . It cannot be dismissed as planted unless an investigation is conducted to such a serious allegation.
One should always call Vijay Joshi before publishing libelous trash.
Hemant – if the charge is serious and true yes. But innuendo should not lead to ‘investigation’. Or else I could charge you with child molestation now and ask for a detailed investigation, including removing children from your home right away.
Apart from being an attack on his benefactor M K Razdan, he is also calling all those working under him with 20 plus years as nincompoos. Poor seniors there.
Yes, I am. Many many nincompoops, especially the leadership – including your friend Chandrasekhar.
I hope Vijay clears the entire top. No better way to change an organization.
However, I am not sure if he will be allowed to – What with the nefarious reach these snickering, jealous, pipsqueaking, whining, immoral ex-leaders (and their minions) that are being kicked out of the door.
Kudos to Vijay for trying to drag this organization into sunshine – and may the force be with him. He needs to know that change is difficult. Rent-seekrs are entrenched everywhere to block progress.
PGurus should support such incorruptible, talented leadership thrive and the great transformational efforts goin on there. Go to their offices.
One should be true one’ salt. All this attack on the “past moribund” leadership of PTI is a direct attack on M K Razdan, who headed it for more than 20 years.
I’m afraid I do not know Razdan.
And he deserves attack for the poor state of PTI.
Vinay and Team PGurus:
(1) Do you think that the type of entry – “media pass with RF Tag”- is significant to the challenges PTI faces or even worthy of your attention? Or do you think this is some weird gotcha technicality being pumped by status-quoists?
(2) Do you think that improving the quality of PTI reporting over the last 5 years is better served by promoting from within or injecting talent that has exposure to the best practice elsewhere?
(3) By repeatedly peddling trivial irrelevancies as a major institutional collapse worthy of attention the piece loses all its credibility – You think the following is a reasonable judgement? “Here the question is why Parliament authorities knowingly ignored the fake experience claim by Vijay Joshi. Giving false declaration is a crime and fit for registering a criminal case against Vijay Joshi.”
(4) I say the above as a regular reader and supporter of 95% of all your pieces here
This Vijay Joshi is only a stop gap arrangement till the elevation of MK Razdan’s favourite Priyanka Tikkoo to take charge as PTI’s Editor-In-Chief in coming years. For Priyanka Tikko’s elevation, all the existing seniors are shunted out and novice Vijay Joshi is placed. No further comments on this regard.
What is the insignificant technicality?
PTI has to move towards modern times from its moribund past. Injection of fresh leadership, trained and well versed in digital technologies is a must.
Vijay’s leadership and ability to direct PTI into modern times is being thwarted by status-quoists using all means – fair and foul. This unintelligent article is an obvious plant – harping in an insignificant (not sure if it is even true) minutiae that has little to do with the future of PTI.
I urge the publishers to delete this pointless innuendo. Pile of garbage
What exactly is wrong with the article? Can you provide facts that disprove this “pile of garbage”?
Please call Vijay Joshi – He covered the Parliament for many years.
With due respect you have the responsibility of making sure that the article you publish is factual. Unless you want the site to degenerate into yellow journalism.
It is your job to ask Vijay if your charges are true. If I were Vijay, I could sue for slander and libel.
The question here raised is about the false claim by Vijay Joshi that he covered Parliament. Article proves that he has not and falsely claimed
Article makes claims – with no proof and in this case a blatant lie.
In fact Vijay Joshi should qualify for Long and Distinguished category pass.
Without covering Parliament, why he made a false claim?
So what?
Vijay Joshi may have covered Indian news for many years for AP. But did he cover Indian Parliament? That is the issue on hand here.
Yes he did.
What a load of crap. You should be ashamed of publishing this garbage. Vijay Joshi covered Indian news for many years for AP.
This piece appears to have been planted by sources close to the earlier team of journalists who expect this job to be based on tenure and not qualification.
PTI has to transform itself in a big way to be more comparable to other agencies. Pushing the same nincompoops to manage it after their 20+ year leadership stints led to the the decline of the agency is a blunder. Fresh professional management is needed to drive this poorly led agency to modern times.
The point in this article is Vijay Joshi made false claim that he had experience in covering Parliament. Making false claim on record is crime
Is seems to be a planted story. I’m not favouring any of the editors here, but, PTI is an organisation which is always looked up to. The story is very badly written even for the standards of an online portal.
Shame. These kind of Pygmies are sitting in the chairs of Editors. MK Razdan killed PTI.
Is this a burning issue?
Bravo!