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Tag: Delhi CM

  • Delhi CM to meet I&B minister on CAS

    Delhi CM to meet I&B minister on CAS

    NEW DELHI: The last day of the year may just about witness another twist in the already twisted CAS tale.
     
     
    Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit, after her flip-flop stance on conditional access, is slated to meet up with the information and broadcasting minister Ravi Shankar Prasad at 4 pm again today. This would be her second meeting with Prasad within a fortnight.

    What is surprising is that coming along with Dixit — heading a Congress government in the apital — is a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and a Member of Parliament from one of the Delhi parliamentary seats, Vijay K Malhotra.

    Both Dixit and Malhotra have been critical of the rollout of CAS in South Delhi areas, stating that in its present form, it is not consumer friendly.

    A few days ago, Malhotra also wrote a letter to Prasad saying that CAS should be deferred in Delhi for a year.

    With general elections looming large over the country, much ahead of the late 2004 polls as had been envisaged, consigning of CAS to the dustbin of history may end up becoming a populist measure for power and vote hungry politicians.

    Star tuned for more details on today’s meeting.

  • CAS not scam: RSP to Delhi CM

    NEW DELHI: Conditional access system (CAS) may not have got completely derailed yet. But a day after speaking of co-operation (in a meeting between Delhi chief minister Shiela Dikshit and I&B minister RS Prasad), the Central and state governments are hurling accusations and counter-elucidations. 
    Reacting to a reference made in the Delhi Assembly yesterday on CAS – on the lines of it being obsolete technology and a hint of scam – the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry today said these talks were “unwarranted”.
    In a related development today, Vijay K Malhotra, a BJP Member of Parliament from Delhi, has written to Prasad stating that the Centre should request the courts to defer CAS rollout in Delhi (yet again), since there is already a lot of confusion.
    According to reports, Dixit had stated in the Assembly that rejected and inferior technology was being imported from a single foreign company (for the set-top boxes). She said, it was being imposed upon the people of South Delhi, on the pretext of implementation of CAS.
    Dixit has also been quoted as having told the Assembly that the I&B ministry does not have any plan of action that 
    has resulted in total confusion.
    To top it all, the CM has been quoted in some newspapers as having said that the manner in which CAS was sought to be implemented has raised doubts about the motives behind it.
    Peeved at such remarks, the I&B ministry today said that the “statements are unwarranted and do not at all represent the factual position.”
    Pointing out that at present, a technology for the manufacture of STBs does not exist in India – and “confirmed” by the Consumer Electronics and TV Manufacturers Association (Cetma) – the ministry in a statement said, “The Indian industry would only be able to manufacture STBs if there was a guarantee of sufficient volumes – a situation that could come about only if CAS is implemented in several cities.”
    The ministry has pointed out that the boxes and the CAS technology itself have been imported directly by different multi-system operators (MSOs) from manufacturers like Hundon in Korea (Siticable), Humax of Korea (Hathway), Conax of Norway (Siticable), NagraVision (Hindujas/ INCablenet) and C-Net of China (Trinity, formerly Spectranet).
    “A team of highly qualified engineers from BECIL (Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited), a public sector undertaking, was sent to Korea to inspect the manufacturing facilities and to report on quality control measures undertaken by the manufactures,” the ministry said in a statement. It added that the boxes were being manufactured according to stipulated quality standards.
    Boxes imported into India were also subject to random checking of technical specifications by BECIL, and it has been confirmed that these meet the norms of the Bureau of Indian Standards specified for STB, the I&B ministry has said.
    Refuting Dixit’s statement that it had no plan of action ready, the ministry said , “The implementation of CAS in South Delhi is an immediate consequence of the order of the Delhi High Court, dated 4 December 2003. The chief minister was apprised of this fact when she met the I&B Minister on 22 December. The I&B ministry is fully aware of its responsibilities in the implementation of CAS, and has, in turn, requested the state governments concerned for their full co-operation.”

  • PM holds another ‘CAS summit’, Delhi CM meets Indian broadcasters

    NEW DELHI: Even as the Indian broadcasters met the Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, a staunch opponent of conditional access rollout, Prime Minister AB Vajpayee held a meeting on CAS at his residence with colleagues.
    According to government sources, the PM held a meeting with information and broadcasting minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and law minister Arun Jaitley today evening around 6 pm, “presumably an update on CAS.” The issue of Star News may also have been discussed.
    Though details of the meeting was not available till the time of writing this report, government sources indicated that with Parliament in session, the PM wants to make sure the CAS issue doesn’t blow up into a controversy.
    The Standing Committee on information technology, that released it latest report today, has anyway recommended a deferment of CAS implementation to ensure a blackout of satellite pay channels does not happen.
    It is also learnt that Jaitley has been drafted into the issue to broker a truce between still-warring factions of broadcasters and the cable fraternity. His presence in such meetings indicates that the government may be looking at a new piece of legislation to rein in pay broadcasters who, according to a source close to Prasad, “have not played fair and have constantly put roadblocks in the way of a smooth rollout of CAS.”
    In private, the government, some ministers and even bureaucrats admit that it would be time consuming to try bringing a legislation to make “errant” broadcasters fall in line. “But in the long run that (a legislation) would happen and the broadcasters, especially one particular foreign-owned broadcaster, would realise that the government had been lenient in the past hoping in vain for full co-operation on CAS,” the source close to Prasad explained.
    In the meanwhile, Delhi CM Dikshit met Indian broadcasters who briefed her on the benefits of CAS. “She has now asked us to come back with a full presentation on the issue,” an Indian broadcaster’s representative said.