The cabinet approved National Online Media Policy 2017 (Amendment 2020) incorporating some new provisions. According to the new provisions, newspapers, TV and radio channels will have to get registered with the government if they want to run an online version.
He said that issues like the guidelines for registration and disqualifications,registration fee, running news portal by licensed television channels and radio, IPTV and Internet Radio were not defined which necessitated the amendment in the National Online Media policy.
Earlier, the government of Bangladesh started the process for the registration of online news portals in December last year. Government has announced that action will be taken against the news portals which don’t register with the authorities.
More than 3500 news portals had applied for registration to the government. The government published a partial list of ‘verified’ news portals early in August this year.
– Rajesh Jha/ Dhaka