Journalist Arnab Goswami, who has promised viewers that he will be coming back with his new news channel Republic in a few weeks, claims his channel has been served legal notice over the use of the phrase 'Nation wants to know'.
Goswami had used the phrase liberally over several years on the prime time show, Newshour, on Times Now before he quit the news channel on November 1 2016. He announced about a month later that he was launching a new channel.
That channel is called Republic, and may undergo a slight change in nomenclature. Goswami recently announced through the official social media handles of the channel that he was returning to prime time television "in a few weeks". People are expecting him to get back to asking politicians and bureaucrats tough questions, and using the phrase "nation wants to know" to draw out answers when they become evasive.
However, Goswami has said in a two-minute 58-second video posted on YouTube on Monday, April 17, that he has been sent a "six-page letter" by a "media group" that threatens him with imprisonment if he uses the phrase. "They say that they own the phrase 'nation wants to know'," he is heard saying in the video.
Apparently, this is not the first legal notice he has been sent by this "media group," which anyone can guess is the Times Group.
Goswami said he has "watched the nervous antics of this media group with amusement and horror for the last few months." He added that he was replying to them in public now, and said: "The threat of imprisonment will not deter me. Bring your moneybags and your lawyers."
He also said: "The phrase 'nation wants to know' belongs to you, to me and to all of us, to every citizen of this country. It symbolises what we do... Every Indian has a right to use that phrase."
A Times Now spokesperson was quoted by Mint newspaper as saying that "ARG Outlier [the parent company of Republic] had filed for trademark for these and similar phrases which were already filed for and extensively used for years by Times Now. We have responded with a standard caution notice. He [Goswami] is just trying to gain soundbytes from it."
Watch the full video from Arnab Goswami here:
