New Delhi: India’s public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has signed an exclusive contract with Hindusthan Samachar, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed news agency, for its daily news feeds.
The decision comes two years after Prasar Bharati cancelled its subscription with India’s largest professional news agency, the Press Trust of India (PTI).
The contact was signed on February 14, 2023, even as Hindusthan Samachar started catering wire services free of cost to Prasar Bharati from 2017 on what The WIRE said ‘evaluation basis’.
Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio, entered in a formal agreement with Hindustan Samachar for a period of two years until March 2025, paying it nearly Rs 7.7 crore.
Hindusthan Samachar will provide at least 100 news stories every day to Prasar Bharati, which includes 10 national news stories and 40 ‘local stories” in regional languages, according to the WIRE.
Equipped with more than 600 staff journalists, and 800 stringers, PTI remains the oldest professional agency in India providing subscribers about 1,000 stories a day.
Its video service, started earlier this month, streams more than 100 live events a day alongside 200 raw video packages, becoming a challenge to news agency ANI, which is reportedly favoured by the Modi government.
Hindusthan Samachar was founded in 1948 by Shivram Shankar Apte, a senior RSS pracharak and co-founder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad along with RSS ideologue M.S. Golwalkar.
Since coming to power, Modi government has reportedly been providing Hindustan Samachar with government advertisements.
Prasar Bharati’s contract with Hindustan Samachar follows Modi government’s long-going ‘bitter run-ins’ with PTI and United News of India (UNI).
The government reportedly directed Prasar Bharati to terminate services of both the news agencies over ‘unreasonable’ subscription rates.
The Modi government believes that PTI and UNI offer only what The WIRE said ‘slanted’ news feeds, while it looks for a news agency to show the government only in positive light.