By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, July 13: The government of Nepal has sent a letter to the government of India expressing concerns over the defamatory materials featured in some Indian television channels and urged the latter to take steps against those slanderous materials.
It said that the materials were fake, baseless and insensitive as well as abusive towards Nepal and its leadership and tend to mislead and misinform while breaching the decorum of a civilised society.
“The government has requested New Delhi to immediately take steps against these obscene materials about Nepal disseminated by Indian media and make sure that such materials do not find space in the media,” said a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) source to The Rising Nepal.
Nepal has said in the letter that media posture against a friendly neighbour and its leadership would hurt the feelings of Nepali people and political leaders.
Saying that Nepal and India enjoy age-old friendly bilateral relations with socio-cultural and people-to-people connections, the government has made a note that such smearing campaigns would only create bitterness in the relations and peoples between the two neighbours.
“The deep and multi-dimensional relations are based on the principles of sovereign equality, friendship and understanding, and mutual respect of each other’s interests and concerns,” a MoFA official quoted the letter.
The letter maintains that the media had an important role in advancing relations between the two countries at multiple fronts and play a constructive role in disseminating right information and shaping the right perspectives.
The government said that press freedom should not cross the threshold of minimum decency and ethical redline. “The abusive media content is contrary to the declared pronouncements of the leadership of the two countries to consolidate the solid foundation of bilateral relations for the benefit of the people of the two countries in the 21st century,” the letter read.