The Nepali interim parliament has unanimously passed a bill amending the "Working Journalists Act", ensuring professional rights and security to journalists, the National News Agency, RSS reported on Thursday.
Minister for Information and Communications Krishna Bahadur Mahara had presented the bill along with a report of the Environment, Communications and Technology Committee for discussion.
Mahara said the amendment was made in order to protect the rights and well-being of working journalists, the management aspect of media institutions.
He said the amendment, made following extensive discussion with the Federation of Nepalese Journalists and working journalists, would address the immediate problems and would ensure that injustice is not done to any working journalist.
According to the new bill passed Wednesday, media houses will not be allowed to keep more than 15 percent of the employees on contract basis, who will also be entitled to provident fund and other facilities being given to permanent journalists.
Likewise, media houses will have to cover the expenses incurred by the journalists due to accident or loss or destruction of media equipment.
A 13-member committee will be formed to look into the issue of salary to the journalists, which will be led by a government appointed media expert.
The media houses need to spend at least one percent of their annual income for capacity building activities of the journalists under the bill.
Source: Xinhua
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