The governing committee of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia in Delhi has ostensibly been reconstituted, as per a note issued by Venkat Narayan, who an “emergency meet” had this month tried to remove as the club’s “president”.
Newslaundry had earlier detailed how two factions were claiming to be in charge of the club, which has over 500 journalists and photojournalists and is meant to serve as “an important meeting point for far-flung travelling journalists”. Two journalists, who were appointed as the interim president and interim general secretary in the “emergency meet”, were later expelled from the club.
Simran Sodhi and Sanjay Kumar had subsequently told Newslaundry that the expulsion letter was “illegal” and that Venkat Narayan was “not bothered about addressing the issues that we raised”.
Meanwhile, the note issued on Tuesday said, “We had to remove the self-appointed interim president and interim secretary, posts that do not exist.”
“We asked the governing committee (GC) members who attended that meeting if they would like to continue to be members of the legally constituted GC that was appointed at the FCC AGM in March 2023, and valid till March 31, 2025. Two of them agreed and reiterated their confidence in the GC. One member opted out and another did not renew his membership. In order to ensure that the club functions unhindered, I am reconstituting the GC by adding two FC members,” it said.
The note also said that it has been decided to “broaden the democratic base of our decision-making process, set up a ‘special invitee’ group comprising four Indian journalists, our associate members with outstanding track records”.
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