CJP Series🪳 Part 8 of 12

The Ambani-Adani media empire: Network18 (40+ channels, Reliance/Ambani), NDTV (acquired by Adani Group 2022), major newspapers, digital platforms. The CJP wants their licences cancelled. Their channels are covering the CJP. The coverage is measured. The irony is not measured. The irony is enormous.

By EMI Iyer, Breaking Bakwas Business & Media Desk  |  May 30, 2026

MUMBAI — Let us be precise about what the CJP manifesto has demanded and who it has demanded it from. The manifesto says: cancel the licences of "all media houses owned by Ambani and Adani." This refers to Mukesh Ambani — India's richest person, Reliance Industries chairman, owner of Jio, Reliance Retail, and through his acquisition of Network18, owner of CNN-News18, CNBC-TV18, News18 India, and over 40 regional and national channels — and Gautam Adani — India's second richest person, Adani Group chairman, who acquired NDTV in 2022 in a transaction that the founders of NDTV described variously as a hostile acquisition and a hostile acquisition and a hostile acquisition. Adani also owns significant print and digital media interests.

Together, these two gentlemen control a proportion of India's media landscape that press freedom organisations have described as a "concentration of media ownership" and that the government has described as "market-driven consolidation." The World Press Freedom Index 2025 ranked India 159th out of 180 countries for press freedom. Reporters Without Borders cited media ownership concentration as a primary factor. The CJP, which emerged from the anger of Gen Z youth, has identified the same target that press freedom researchers have been writing about for three years. The youth did not read the press freedom reports. They watched the channels and drew their own conclusions. The conclusions match the reports. The youth did not need the reports.

"The media should hold power accountable. Not be owned by it."— A sentiment expressed by the CJP, by press freedom organisations, by journalism schools, and by approximately every journalism textbook written since 1960. The distinction between "should hold power accountable" and "is owned by power" is the central media literacy question of 2026 India. The CJP has expressed it as a manifesto demand. The media houses being described have covered the demand. The coverage has not prominently featured the phrase "Party wants to cancel our licences." This is called editorial discretion. It is also called a conflict of interest. Both labels are accurate. Both are being applied simultaneously by different people.

What neither Ambani nor Adani has done is respond to the CJP directly. Both maintain that their media operations are editorially independent — a claim that journalists at those organisations describe with varying degrees of vigour depending on their employment status relative to those organisations. The CJP's demand is extreme — cancelling licences rather than, say, regulatory reform or ownership caps — and it reflects the extremity of the frustration behind it. The demand is not a policy paper. It is a shout. The shout has 19 million amplifiers. Both billionaires are aware of the shout. Both have chosen silence. Their channels have chosen careful coverage. The cockroach is on 19 million Instagram feeds. This is, in the history of Indian media criticism, the most followed media criticism ever conducted. It is being done by an insect. The insect cannot be defamed. The insect does not have feelings about this. The insect is simply on Instagram, being followed, existing.

Ambani Adani MediaNetwork18 NDTV159th Press FreedomEditorial DiscretionInsect Cannot Be DefamedLicence Cancellation Demand
Disclaimer: Satire. Media ownership details are documented from public filings and journalism industry reports. India's 2025 World Press Freedom Index ranking (159/180) is documented from RSF. Neither Ambani nor Adani has been accused of any crime in this article. The insect cannot be defamed. — Ed.