INS lashes out at MRUC; issues counter statement

After about an hour of the MRUC issuing a statement that it has handed over the IS issue to the RSCI, the INS has lashed back at the MRUC decision and sent out an Advisory urging its members to reject the IRS 2013 and take the necessary steps for restoration as they may be advised to take.

The Advisory by V Sankaran, INS Secretary General read:
‘The Executive Committee of the Indian Newspaper Society at its meeting held here yesterday unanimously rejected the findings of Indian Readership Survey 2013 and urged the Media Research Users’ Council to withdraw its report forthwith. MRUC having refused to withdraw its report, the Indian Newspaper Society urges its members to reject IRS 2013 and to take such steps for restitution as they may be advised to take’.

The Advisory also said that a draft communication for transmission to MRUC, and a copy has been sent to all members for information and necessary action.
The draft letter clearly instructs that individually, media houses would write to MRUC Chairman Ravi Rao, RSCI Managing Committee Chairman Hormusji Cama, and Prashant Singh of Nielsen India announcing that they would “withdraw from any association with the Indian Readership Survey (IRS’). It also said, ‘We call upon MRUC, RSCI and Nielsen India to immediately cease and desist from using for the purpose of the survey, the mastheads of all publications for which proprietary rights are owned by us. We insist on written acknowledgement of this letter together with an assurance that the usage of our mastheads for survey purposes will be immediately ceased’.

Now that the swords of the parties in dispute are out, quite literally, we shall wait to see how this dramatic saga takes a new route.