Restricting newspaper in government offices

In a stunning move the government has issued a
circular directing all government offices including autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies to limit their subscription to five newspapers, three Bangla and two English. All the rest cannot be purchased at government cost.
The move is reminiscent of military autocrats and dictators who did not want the officials to read news and views critical of them. Such a policy, adopted by an elected government, can best be defined as undemocratic, vindictive and self-destructive.
We can only characterise the decision of the government as vengeful and vicious, meant to 'punish' those newspapers that are not to their particular liking. And that portends a dangerous prospect. When a government chooses to read newspapers selectively, only those that praise it, and rejects those that are justifiably critical of its policies and actions, it leaves a government divorced from reality. And when there is a propensity to read what the government wants to read and not what it ought to read, it is a fantasy world that they create, a world far removed from reality.
Evidently, the message that the government is conveying is that it is neither ready nor willing to listen to alternative facts and views, they being unpalatable, and accept valid criticisms, without realising that such policy will sap its capacity to address issues of public interest appropriately, believing that everything is hunky-dory.
We would like to caution against the negative effect of patronizing newspapers that praise the government only, because that is a certain way of being isolated from the larger segment of public opinion and indeed the larger segment of the society. Leaving out some of the highest circulation newspapers in favour of others is not only waste of public money, it reveals the ostrich like attitude of the government. And even worse, it will deprive the policymakers and planners from reliable feed back which is so important for good governance.
The government needs to ponder as to why some papers are more widely read than others. Surely the circulation has to do with a paper's reliability, of its being informative, objective and constructive and trustworthy to the people. Need one be reminded that discriminatory policies with regard to newspapers, and controlling the flow of information, have in the long run proved counterproductive for many a popularly elected government?