Kochi: Justice Cyriac Joseph has been appointed National Chairman of the Council. He is a former Chief Justice of the High Court and a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He has also served as Acting Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission and as Kerala Lokayukta.
Three other members have also assumed responsibilities on the Council. Dr. Venu Rajamony, former Press Secretary to the President of India and former Indian Ambassador to the Netherlands; Dr. George Onakkoor, a distinguished writer and recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award; and George Kallivayalil, a senior journalist based in Delhi and Editor of Deepika, will serve as national members of the Grievance Council.
The seven-member Grievance Council, headed by Justice Cyriac Joseph, has been reconstituted with three representatives of ComIndia, in accordance with the Central Government’s directive.
The ComIndia representatives are Vincent Nellikunnel, a member of the governing body of the Kerala Media Academy, President of ComIndia, and Editor of Sathyam Online; Soymon Mathew, General Secretary of ComIndia and Editor of Malayali Vartha; and K.K. Sreejith, Treasurer of ComIndia and Editor of Truevision News.
Dr K.K.N. Kurup, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calicut, had served as Chairman of the Council for five years from 2021. The new Council was selected after his tenure ended.
ComIndia President Vincent Nellikunnel said the revised list of Grievance Council members had been submitted to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The names of the new members were proposed at the ComIndia General Council meeting held in Kochi on July 7 and approved by the Executive Committee at its July 18 meeting. The new Council will have a two-year term.
The Council was constituted under an order issued by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in accordance with the Information Technology Rules, 2021.
After the Central Government introduced the new IT framework and directed media organizations across the country to establish grievance councils under the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, ComIndia’s IDPCGC became the second such grievance council to be formed in India and the first in Kerala.
At the time, ComIndia’s Grievance Council was praised as one of the most systematically constituted grievance councils in the country.
It was also considered significant that ComIndia received official recognition nearly a year before the grievance councils of Kerala’s traditional print media organizations and television news channels were approved.
