ITV

Category: I&B Ministry

  • I&B MoS Ambareesh quits over Cauvery award

    I&B MoS Ambareesh quits over Cauvery award

    NEW DELHI: Renowned Kannada actor-turned-politician MH Ambareesh has quit as the minister of state for information and broadcasting and also his seat in the Lok Sabha protesting that the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal had been ”unfair” to Karnataka in its final verdict.

    Ambareesh announced in Bangalore yesterday that he had sent his resignation both to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee as well as Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, and also sent a copy to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

    However, his resignation was rejected Chatterjee on technical grounds. The Speaker’s office contended that Ambareesh had faxed the resignation, which was not the acceptable method of putting in papers, even as his fans also urged him to withdraw the resignation.

    Ambareesh announced the resignation following pressure by people in his constituency Mandya when he was gheraoed by lawyers when he came to participate in a function in the Karnataka High Court here to release a special cover and cancellation of the Postal department to commemorate the golden jubilee of the High Court.

    Holding that the Tribunal had caused “injustice” to the southern state, he complimented the lawyers for taking up the cause of the state. Congress circles in the state were caught complete unawares by his move.

    Karnataka had been witnessing widespread protests after the 5 February Tribunal award, which directed Karnataka to release 192 tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu, pegging the state’s requirement at 270 tmc ft as against 419 tmc ft of the lower riparian state.

    The star, who was elected from the Mandya Lok Sabha constituency for a third time in 2004, had led a procession of cine artistes against the award in the city yesterday.

    Meanwhile, G Made Gowda, president of the Cauvery Hitarakshana Horata Samiti, which is spearheading the agitation on the water sharing issue, termed the resignation of Ambareesh as a hasty decision and said the star should continue as a minister and fight for the water rights of the state.

  • Veteran ballet dancer, eminent medico join Prasar Bharati board

    Veteran ballet dancer, eminent medico join Prasar Bharati board

    NEW DELHI: Veteran ballet dancer Mamata Shankar, renowned cardiac surgeon Sunil Kapoor and senior journalist George Verghese have been appointed members of the Prasar Bharati Board with immediate effect.

    The new appointees are part of the six part-time members provided for under the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act 1990 which was brought into force from September 1997.

    Chaired by senior media expert MV Kamath and executive member BS Lalli, the board includes Chitra Mudgal and Bhupen Hazarika as part-time members.

    Verghese, who has been working with news agency United News of India for the last 35 years, will be on the board for five years.

  • Nimbus-DD talks fail, I&B may issue ordinance

    Nimbus-DD talks fail, I&B may issue ordinance

    NEW DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry is likely to issue an ordinance by the end of the week, making it mandatory for Neo Sports to share its cricket telecast feed with Prasar Bharati.

    Ministry sources told Indiantelevision.com that as the minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi was not in Delhi, deliberations on drafting an ordinance can only commence on Tuesday.

    If an ordinance is finalized, it will be sent to the law ministry for clearance and only then referred to the union cabinet for approval. As this process is unlikely to be complete by Thursday when the cabinet meets, a special meeting may be held later to clear the ordinance.

    Negotiations had earlier broken down with Nimbus which owns Neo Sports when the private channel insisted that Doordarshan should either encrypt the channel or show the matches as a deferred telecast. After almost three days of negotiations, Prasar Bharati officials said the conditions set by Nimbus was not in conformity with the uplinking/downlinking guidelines issued by the government.

  • Dasmunsi urges diaspora role to reflect changing India

    Dasmunsi urges diaspora role to reflect changing India

    MUMBAI: Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, PR Dasmunsi while addressing the session on ‘Media and Indian Diaspora’ at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divasstated that the Indian diaspora should act as a medium to reflect the changing scene in India.

    The Minister said that the spate of development in India is carrying along with it the democratic values, freedom of the Press and other pillars of Indian democratic system and is not just growth from the economic point of view.

    This perspective, he said, needs to be conveyed to the world at large for showing a true picture of emerging India. The Minister appreciated the role of Indian diaspora in providing a window to us all for a better understanding of the systems and values operational worldwide.

    Delineating recent changes brought in the regulatory and facilitative framework for the print as well as electronic media in the country, Dasmunsi said that Indian Press enjoys enormous freedom. The interaction between the Government and the Media is on democratic and friendly lines.

    He lauded the support and cooperation of the media to the Government in hours of crises to keep in check the designs of divisive forces. The Minister felt that the Indian media based abroad can exploit the ongoing boom in the electronic media in news as well as programme based channels in the country.

  • Guild seeks tax sops, to submit pre-Budget memorandum to I&B ministry

    Guild seeks tax sops, to submit pre-Budget memorandum to I&B ministry

    NEW DELHI: The film industry wants abolition of customs/excise duty, countervailing duty on import of broadcasting/post-production and animation equipment, set-top boxes (STBs) and removal of octroi on raw stock and exemption of service tax on duplication of prints to be removed on export sales.

    The Film and Television Producers Guild of India is meeting information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi shortly to submit the Pre-Budget Memorandum highlighting issues concerning the entertainment industry.
    The demands will include an increase in proportion of foreign direct investment in media from 26 per cent to 74 per cent for Direct to Home (DTH).

    Subsidies and incentives will be sought for boosting export of animation content being driven out of India on the lines of tax benefits provided by Canadian Government for creating local animation content.

    There is also a demand for creation of Special Export Zones (SEZs) for the entertainment media to facilitate promotion of Indian exports content, and widening the definition of industrial undertaking under Section 72A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 to include electronic media (TV broadcasting).

    Another demand is for reduction of the base for fringe benefit tax from 20 per cent to 5 per cent for the broadcasting industry, as in the case of computer software industry and exemption for broadcasting industry from service tax as in the case of print media.

  • No extension on Cas deadline: I&B ministry

    No extension on Cas deadline: I&B ministry

    MUMBAI: Conditional access system (Cas) will be rolled out in the notified areas of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata from 31 December and no time extension is under consideration, the government said today.

    The deadline has been fixed by the Delhi High Court and there is no possibility of it being extended, an official statement from the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry clarified.

    “In an application moved by a multi-system operator (MSO) before the Delhi high court for extension of time, the court has already taken a view that no such time extension is possible. The I&B ministry does not have the power to order any extension in the date of implementation of Cas. The transition time to run encrypted and unencrypted channels and switching off pay channel signals in unencrypted format began from 16 December and will end on 30 December,” the release said.

    The ministry was reacting to a report in a leading news daily that the deadline for rolling out Cas had been relaxed. “The report is totally misleading and baseless,” the ministry said.

    The ministry also categorically denied that it had left open a month-long window after 31 December for implementation of CAS and said that there was no question of any channel being blacked out. The I&B ministry has not filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court seeking transition time after 31 December, it clarified.

    “In the advertisements on Cas released by the ministry from time to time in various newspapers, subscribers have been requested to apply sufficiently well in advance of 31 December for set-top boxes indicating their choice for pay channels lest their pay channels are blacked out on 31 December,” the release added.

  • I&B ministry announces promotions

    I&B ministry announces promotions

    MUMBAI: Three senior officers of the Indian Information Service have been promoted to the rank of additional secretary.
    They are Shipra Biswas, PK Bandopadhyay and Amitabha Chakrabarti.

    Bandopadhyay has been appointed as the new director general (News) NSD, AIR, replacing Mishra who will take charge as the director general DAVP. Amitabha Chakrabarti director RR&TD has swapped positions with Mohan Chandak who’s the press registrar.

    Swagata Ghosh has been appointed director general (News) in Doordarshan and Shipra Biswas has been promoted as additional director general (M&C), PIB, New Delhi.

  • MIB inaugrates PIB’s Audio Visual Unit

    MIB inaugrates PIB’s Audio Visual Unit

    MUMBAI: The Minister for Information & Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, PR Dasmunsi inaugurated the Audio Visual Unit of the Press Information Bureau(PIB).

    Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said it has become important to meet people’s growing needs for information through 24 hour TV channels. He asserted that the audio visual cell will satiate the hunger of large sections of people concerned with information on day to day developments of the Nation.

    Describing this initiative as a “big jump” and “stage II revolution” in the efforts of PIB to cater to the requirements of electronic media, the Minister for I&B expressed hope that it would provide valuable feedback to the Government and meet the needs of TV channels who do not have necessary infrastructure.

    In his address, I&B secretary, SK Arora, welcomed the launch of the audio visual cell by observing that mediapersons could access authentic and accurate information about government’s activities, initiatives and policy pronouncements by visiting PIB’s website.

    He also announced that several lakh rare photographs of last 50 to 60 years available with the Photo Division in a digital form will be placed on the PIB’s website shortly. He expressed hope that this measure would further increase PIB’s popularity among the media.

    In her welcome address, PIB director general, Deepak Sandhu stated that the advent of television channels, especially regional and local channels have brought a new challenge to PIB for meeting the demand for visual content of Government information. AV Unit which was started by PIB in response, will disseminate important information in the audio-visual format including special interviews with senior ministers.

    The format which has been adopted to start with, is to web-stream the audio-visual content on the website in a preview format and downloadable format. The video clips will be confined to a maximum of two minutes so that there is no difficulty in downloading the contents. At a later stage, PIB hopes to distribute this audio-visual material in DVD format as well.

  • AIR to present live commentary of Sunfeast Open Tennis

    AIR to present live commentary of Sunfeast Open Tennis

    MUMBAI: All India Radio will broadcast live commentary of semifinals & final matches of the Sunfeast Open Tennis Championship being played in Kolkata.

    The Semifinals are slated to be played on Saturday and the final on Sunday. The tournament has evinced interest among Indian fans because of the participation of India’s Sania Mirza and the former world number one Martina Hingis, states an official release.

    The commentary will be broadcast alternately in English and Hindi. The commentators are lieutenant General Utkal Bhattacharya in English and Shivendra Chaturvedi in Hindi, the release informs.

    The commentary will be available on the national hook-up of All India Radio and the AIR FM Gold Channel in Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

  • Radio one launches quiz contest- Bollywood Badshah

    Radio one launches quiz contest- Bollywood Badshah

    MUMBAI: Radio One has announced the launch of a quiz contest based on Bollywood, titled Bollywood Badshah.

    “Bollywood Badshah is truly the definitive Bollywood quiz in the nation today. It was designed, packaged and produced for Radio. It is challenging, interesting and obviously very Bollywood and goes with the Radio One philosophy of celebrating the hits,” says Radio One VP(Programming and Brand) Vishnu Athreya.

    Popular TV personality Gaurav Kapoor will be hosting the show. “Gaurav is the perfect host for Bollywood Badshah. He is young, extremely talented, and filmy, completely fitting the shows personality and we are sure he will entertain the listener and participants alike,” says Athreya.

    The channel has roped in Sahara Filmy, Ruffles Lays, Shoppers Stop, Sony Handycam as sponsors of the show that will last for eight weeks.

    “Post the success of Malamaal Daily, we are hopeful to see huge participation in a programming promotion as such, especially since Bollywood is such an integral part of our listeners’ lives.” opines Radio One VP(Operations) Shariq Patel.

    The entry forms are not only available in all leading newspapers, one can also get the forms by logging on to the stations’ website, www.radioone.in.

    By sending a SMS ‘BB’ to 3650, participants can avail all terms and conditions to play the game. This year there is a prize for everyone, the participants, the semi finalists as well as the winner. The winner gets to go home with something real big, which may be a trip for two to a choice of their destination, informs an official release.