[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he media houses in Nagaland are determined to go ahead with their earlier decision of boycotting all government related programmes including the two-day visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the upcoming The Hornbill Festival. One month’s time was given by the newspaper editors of the state to the government t to clear all the pending advertisement bills. The memorandum addressed to the chief minister was submitted on October 30. In these 28 days the state government was sleeping over the matter only to wake up at the 11th hour to address it. Since the pending bills are for several years technically it will be a painstaking task to have the work done in two days’ time and the government knows this fact well. But still then it acted a drama before the media houses asking them to collect their money with the condition that they produce the ‘release orders’. Interestingly, the state government is doing this on Saturday, the 29th of November, a day before the deadline given by the editors expires. We take this as a big show of drama from the state government part. It was trying its best to convince the media houses by explaining the technical difficulties to execute such a large work load in few days’ time.Now, the editors’ argument is that the memorandum was submitted a month ago. The officials should have executed the work they are doing now concertedly few days after the submission of the memorandum. It was only fifteen days after the submission of the memorandum i.e. on November 15 the chief secretary convened a meeting with head of departments of the state government. A press release from the state government assuring to clear the pending advertisement bills was issued after the November 15 meeting. We thought things were moving then. But the desired response was not seen from the government side until five days ago. The editors had another meeting and issued a ‘reminder’ press statement on November 24.
Here, no one should blame the media houses if they go ahead of boycotting The Hornbill Festival and other important events related to the state government. Enough is enough.
