This meeting of the Union Council of the National Union of Journalists (India) held in Ranchi on November 27, 2011 having considered the media situation, the unhealthy trends in both the print and electronic media and the new challenges of the online media as well as emerging trends in various sections of society impacted by the media, demands that the Government should take early steps to set up a Media Council to guide the progress of the sector into a robust fourth estate supporting and promoting diversity and freedom in this largest constitutional democracy in the world. The NUJ (I) has been making this demand for quite some years ever since the electronic media emerged as a powerful factor in our mass communication environment.# The NUJ (I) itself had 31 years ago adopted a code for working journalists and newspapers known as the Agra Declaration that laid down the roadmap for an ethical, responsible and vibrant media. The fact that several publishers are adopting and forcing reporters to follow suit in unethical means for gaining commercial advantage, that advertisers are influencing media projections subtly and otherwise, that they are collectively and individually seeking to break down the trade unions so that they may not work as a bulwark against such wrong trends, that the trivia and the titillating get priority in their content over the burning problems of the society and the nation, can no longer be questioned.# The NUJ (I) at various levels has been fighting against these trends. In the Press Council our union representatives have raised issues of great import to proper functioning of the print media especially against advertisers influencing news and views against public interest. The publishers in most cases have ceased to report Press Council’s decisions as they often tend to expose the weaknesses and creeping viruses in the Press. In the electronic media the so-called publishers’ regulatory bodies have been ignoring the emerging basic trends and only dealing with peripheral wrongdoings. Governments at state and central level are making either desultory or politically motivated moves in their relationship with media. Some states are even promoting idea of a cable monopoly thinly disguised as the state distribution agency behind the interest of the ruling party. The Centre’s weakness was recently exposed when it quietly withdrew instructions to the electronic media in the context of the public concerns about certain events in the television coverage. All this exposes the absence of a robust mechanism that is authentic voice of sanity and public concern and democracy in regard to media content.# The NUJ (I) therefore strongly stresses the demand for Media Council being set up by a new law expanding the Press Council legislation to take care of the emerging media environment.# Proposed by: Dr NK Trikha# Union Council Meeting, Ranchi# November 27, 2011