New Delhi: Continuing his hard stand against a section of media houses, minister of state for external affairs Gen. (retd) V.K. Singh on Thursday pushed for a media regulatory body to function as an effective “watchdog”.

Gen. Singh, who has been under attack for referring to some journalists as “presstitutes”, said he has been repeatedly attacked since 2012 by certain “media workers” (sic), who not only cooked up stories, but also did enormous harm to the institution that he was then heading — the Indian Army (during the tenure of the then UPA-2 government).

“The (then) government of India, perhaps not wanting to take on these ‘media workers’, who would hide behind the larger umbrella of the ‘National Media’, failed to act,” the former Army Chief said in a statement. He said that he had complained to the home ministry in 2013 about “planted stories and their immediate sources” and added that he would be happy to forward the complaint that was filed with the MHA to the Broadcaster’s Association, should it publicly commit itself to forming an impartial body with specific time lines.

“It is time that the media itself seriously looked at creating an effective watchdog organisation that has the power to actually nip this malice in the bud. Today the media’s own credibility is at stake and unless there is effective internal policing, this problem threatens to go completely out of hand,” he said.

He said they are not only going scot free but also keeping up a “steady flow of misinformation”.