Grievance officer

The Rising Story is a publisher of news and current affairs content, which places it under Part III of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Rule 11(2)(a) requires a publisher to appoint a Grievance Officer based in India. Rule 11(2)(b) requires their name and contact details to be published where a reader can find them. This page is that.

Who to write to

The officer is based in India. Write in English or Hindi — both are read by the same person.

What you can raise here

Anything about something we have published: a fact you believe is wrong, a quote you did not say or that has been cut in a way that changes it, a story that treats you unfairly, a photograph used without permission, or content you believe breaks the law.

You do not have to be the subject of the story. Anyone may complain about anything on this site.

For a straightforward factual error you do not need this page — the corrections route is faster and reaches the same desk. Nothing is lost by using either.

What happens, and by when

Within 24 hours, you get an acknowledgement with a reference, so you have it in writing that the complaint exists. That is the period Rule 10(2) sets.

Within 15 days of the complaint being registered, we decide it and tell you the decision. Rules 10(3)(a) and 11(2)(c) require a decision on every grievance in that time, not merely a reply — so what comes back says what we concluded and what we are doing about it, even when the answer is that we are leaving the story as it stands.

Where we got something wrong, the correction goes on the story itself and onto the corrections page, dated. We do not quietly edit published work.

What to include

• The link to the story, and the sentence or passage at issue.
• What is wrong with it, and what you say is correct.
• Anything that supports that — a document, a filing, a recording, a link.
• Your name and a way to reach you. Anonymous complaints are read, but cannot be answered.

If our answer does not satisfy you

Say so, and say why. A grievance can be reopened here, and often the second exchange is the one that resolves it.

Beyond that, two things are worth stating plainly rather than leaving you to discover them. Rule 11(2)(d) contemplates a publisher belonging to a self-regulating body, which would give you somewhere to appeal above us; Rising Story does not currently belong to one, so there is no such appeal to point you at. And the three-tier structure that would ordinarily sit above a publisher, created by Rule 9(3), has been under judicial stay since August 2021 and the challenges to it are still pending.

None of that limits what you can do. You may take a complaint to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, or to any court or authority with jurisdiction, at any point — before, during or after raising it with us. Rule 8(3) says these rules are in addition to other law, not instead of it.

Your personal data

Questions about data we hold — the email address you gave the newsletter, or what you sent through the pitch form — go to the same address, and the same deadlines apply. What we collect and what we do with it is on the privacy page.

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, Rising Story is a Data Fiduciary. Most of that Act, including the rule requiring a published contact for data questions, comes into force on 13 May 2027. We are not waiting for the date: the contact above already answers those questions, and once the Data Protection Board of India is operating you will be able to escalate to it.

What this page does not claim

A grievance page is only worth what its weakest sentence is worth, so here is what is not being asserted. Rising Story is not registered with or approved by any ministry — under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s public notice of 26 May 2021 no such registration exists to hold. It is not a member of a self-regulating body. It does not publish a monthly compliance report, because it does not yet have one to publish, and a promised report nobody maintains is worse than an absent one.

Each of those is something we may come to have. None of them is something we are going to say we have first.