Shailesh Gupta elected President of INS for 2019-2020

Shailesh Gupta, Director, Jagran Prakashan Ltd, has been elected President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) for the year 2019-20 at its 80th Annual General Meeting held here today. He succeeds Jayant Mammen Mathew of Malayala Manorama. 

L Adimoolam (Health & The Antiseptic) has been elected the Deputy President, DD Purkayastha (Ananda Bazar Patrika) is the Vice President and Naresh Mohan (Sunday Statesman) is the Honorary Treasurer of the Society for the year 2019-20. 

Mary Paul is the Secretary General of the Society. 

The other members of the Executive Committee of the INS are: 

1. S Balasubramaniam Adityan (Daily Thanthi)
2. Girish Agarwal (Dainik Bhaskar, Bhopal)
3. Samahit Bal (Pragativadi)
4. Gaurav Chopra (Filmi Duniya)
5. Vijay Kumar Chopra (Punjabi Kesari, Jalandhar)
6. Karan Rajendra Darda (Lokmat, Aurangabad)
7. Vijay Jawaharlal Darda (Lokmat, Nagpur)
8. Jagjit Singh Dardi (Charhdikala Daily)
9. Viveck Goenka (The Indian Express, Mumbai)
10. Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Dainik Jagran)
11. Pradeep Gupta (Dataquest)
12. Sanjay Gupta (Dainik Jagran, Varanasi)
13. Mohit Jain (Economic Times)
14. Sarvinder Kaur (Ajit)
15. MV Shreyams Kumar (Mathrubhumi Arogya Masika)
16. Dr R Lakshmipathy (Dinamalar)
17. Vilas A Marathe (Dainik Hindustan, Amravati)
18. Harsha Mathew (Vanitha)
19. Anant Nath (Grihshobhika, Marathi)
20. Pratap G Pawar (Sakal)
21. Rahul Rajkhewa (The Sentinel)
22. RM R Ramesh (Dinakaran)
23. K Raja Prasad Reddy (Sakshi, Vishakhapatnam)
24. Atideb Sarkar (The Telegraph)
25. Sharad Saxena (Hindustan Times, Patna)
26. Rakesh Sharma (Aaj Samaj)
27. Praveen Someshwar (The Hindustan Times)
28. Kiran D. Thakur (Tarun Bharat, Belgaum)
29. Biju Varghese (Mangalam Weekly)
30. Vinay Verma (The Tribune)
31. I Venkat (Sitara)
32. Bahubali S Shah (Gujarat Samachar)
33. Hormusji N Cama (Bombay Samachar Weekly)
34. Kundan R Vyas (Vyapar, Mumbai)
35. KN Tilak Kumar (Deccan Herald & Prajavani)
36. Ravindra Kumar (The Statesman)
37. Kiran B Vadodaria (Sambhaav Metro)
38. PV Chandran (Grehalaksmi)
39. Somesh Sharma (Rashtradoot Saptahik)
40. Akila Urankar (Business Standard)
41. Jayant Mammen Mathew (Malayala Manorama)

Meanwhile, in his address, outgoing INS President Jayant Mammen Mathew, Executive Editor, Malayala Manorama, noted, “The onslaught of digital media has disrupted the dissemination of news, and is fast changing the Print business model. As connectivity increases, more readers are receiving news 24/7 on their mobile devices.” He, therefore, stressed on the need to move with the times, innovate and adapt to take advantage of new technologies. 

Highlighting some of activities of INS that were critical to print media during his tenure as President, Mathew said, “In the past year, several important issues impacted Print media and INS: New DAVP rates, Customs Duty on Newsprint, Anti-dumping duty, Indian Readership Survey Report-2019, Labour Codes, Manisana Wage Boards for Newspaper Employees, Freedom of the Press, FDI and Challenges from Digital media.” 

He added, “The INS is working with some publishers and major advertising agencies on a pilot Digital Billing project led by Akila Urankar. After successful tests and approvals, we can eliminate voucher copies, resulting in considerable cost savings for the industry.” 

While stating that the imposition of 10 per cent import duty on newsprint, glazed and LWC paper in the Union Budget 2019 would severely impact newspapers, especially, small and medium publications, Mathew said, “The INS was very proactive and has engaged with the Government, meeting the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers of Finance, Industry, I&B and other Government Secretaries to withdraw the duty. We are hopeful this will be withdrawn.” 

He also reiterated that the INS was of the firm opinion that no Wage Boards should be constituted for journalists and non-journalists employees in newspaper establishments. He further added that the INS was keeping a close watch on the Government’s proposal to re-notify the Manisana Wage Board recommendations. 

Mentioning about the release of the IRS Q1 2019 data earlier this year, Mathew said, “The INS is now responsible for investigating any discrepancies that may arise from the readership survey and the onus is now on us, members to be responsible.”