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Tag: I&B ministry

  • Political appointees prefer to bid good-bye to Prasar Bharati following change of government

    Political appointees prefer to bid good-bye to Prasar Bharati following change of government

    NEW DELHI: Even as speculation continues to grow on the spate of resignations from the Board of the Prasar Bharati, it is learnt that one or two more members are expected to put in their papers.

     

    While no official comment was available with even Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar declining to say anything, pubcaster sources said that these resignations could be due to the fact that they were political appointees.

     

    It is learnt that part-time members Dipa Dixit, Suman Dubey and CR Kesavan have put in their papers.

     

    Under the Prasar Bharati Act 1990, the part-time members have a term of six years and therefore cannot be removed before that term is over even if there is a change in government or the governance of Prasar Bharati.

     

    However, one source said that the members are believed to have resigned as a moral obligation since they were appointees of the previous government.

     

    It is also learnt that the members were apprehensive of greater interference in the working of the autonomous pubcaster, and the resignations could be termed as a ‘boycott’ or ‘protest’.

     

    Another source said that the members were also unhappy with the fact that there were crucial delays in not only filling vacancies in the Board, but also the vacancies that had been cleared by the Group of Ministers, as crucial to the function of the pubcaster.

     

    At present, the Prasar Bharati is without a chairperson as Mrinal Pande’s term has come to an end, and the posts of both the Executive Members in-charge of Personnel and Finance.

     

    Over 1100 persons are believed to have been selected by the selection committees for filling crucial posts, but these are not being cleared by the Government.

     

    The Prasar Bharati Board comprises its chairman, an executive member (chief executive officer), member (Finance), member (Personnel) and six part-time members.

    That apart, a representative of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Directors General of All India Radio and Doordarshan are its ex-officio members.

  • TDSAT again adjourns DTH licence fee case to 8 July on plea by operators

    TDSAT again adjourns DTH licence fee case to 8 July on plea by operators

    NEW DELHI: The petition by private direct-to-home (DTH) operators challenging the notice of the government for clearing arrears of licence fees has once again been adjourned – this time to 8 July – as the operators have still not filed their rejoinders to the reply by the government.

     

    The adjournment was allowed by Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) chairman Aftab Alam and Kuldeep Singh on a mention by counsel for the various DTH operators.

     
    TDSAT also noted that the earlier assurance by the government that it will not pressurise the operators in this regard till the case is taken up for hearing will continue.

     

    The petitioners have alleged that the demand by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is contempt of court as the matter in this regard is pending in the Supreme Court.

     

    However, Information and Broadcasting Ministry secretary Bimal Julka had earlier told indiantelevision.com that the apex court had not issued any stay order. However, the government had filed a caveat in this regard, conscious that the TDSAT or the Supreme Court may be moved in the matter.

     
    The Ministry had recently sent a notice to the six private DTH operators with regard to licence fee dues amounting to Rs 2,066 crore. The private operators are Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV, Reliance Big TV, Sun Direct and Videocon d2h.

     

    According to the notice, the six private operators had been asked to pay the amount within 15 days.

     
    However, most of the operators contacted said they had cleared the dues of licence fee.

     
    The operators say the licence fee as demanded under the rules is on gross revenue (GR) whereas they have been asked to pay the fee on the basis of Actual Gross Revenue (AGR). The operators have said the fee should be only on subscription revenue and not on allied earnings such as dividend and interest income. 
     

    Even as the matter was pending, Tata Sky had late last month made a payment of Rs 383 crore to the Ministry to cover its license fee and other dues. A demand draft of the amount was submitted to the Ministry. Even as other operators had said that they would prefer to wait till the next hearing.
     

    Tata Sky had then said that the amount covered license fee for the year 2013-14 according to the rate specified for license as well as past dues.

  • Information and Broadcasting: An uphill journey all the way

    Information and Broadcasting: An uphill journey all the way

    NEW DELHI:  For any person who takes over the mantle of the information & broadcasting ministry (MIB), the handling of the portfolio will be full of potholes created by his or her predecessors, primarily because of the failure to take strong decisions.

     

    By some mischance or deliberate choice, the MIB has remained without a working head since Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi was forced to leave because of sickness. While Ambika Soni did her best to put into operation plans worked out by the ministry’s bureaucrats or the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), both she and her successor Manish Tewari remained primarily spokespersons of the ruling party.

     

    Perhaps this was not entirely their fault, but that of the party which failed to realise that the ‘Information’ portfolio does not imply giving party inputs or the media which insisted on only raising party issues whenever these two met the members of the fourth estate.

     

    There is also no gainsaying that the lower priority given to the MIB – from a full-fledged minister with assisting ministers of state to a single minister of state with independent charge – also contributed to this.     

     

    With the new government in place, the speculation about who the new minister will be and what expectations can be had will be of considerable interest.

     

    If the government decides to hand over the portfolio to someone who takes interest in the information and broadcasting sector, then the choice zeroes down to a handful of names. But it is clear that politicians of the standing of Sushma Swaraj or Arun Jaitley who have held this portfolio earlier will not go back to it, and Shatrughan Sinha who has earlier served in the government as minister in-charge of two ministries will agree only if made a full-fledged minister and the chances are that he will want a more important portfolio than the MIB.

     

    Consequently, the choice falls upon someone like Smriti Irani, unless the Bharatiya Janata Party picks on someone from its allies.

     

    I&B MINISTRY

     

    It would help the government if the decisions being taken by the MIB are transparent, and the concerned officials are easily accessible to the media which represents the aspirations of the people.

     

    While it is true that senior ministry officials are generally reluctant to speak during a session of Parliament, there is no reason for their not doing so at other times.

     

    Perhaps the secretary of the ministry should designate certain officers to be available to the media at certain hours every day, on phone, if not in person.

     

     

    PRASAR BHARATI

     

    Notwithstanding who will hold the portfolio, it is clear that it will be no less than being at the edge of the twin-edged sword. Interestingly, one of these two edges was conceived by the erstwhile Jana Sangh (now BJP) which was then part of Janata Party and L K Advani at the head of this MIB.

     

    Even as B S Lalli was removed from the post of CEO of Prasar Bharati under a cloud of corruption and mismanagement, his successor Jawhar Sircar has taken up cudgels against the ministry on the ground that the public service broadcaster is an autonomous body.

     

    On the other hand, the government feels that since it pays the salaries, has waived spectrum fee and given other concessions, and has initiated the laying down of rules and regulations regarding employees, it cannot be wished away and has to have a say in the working of the pubcaster.

     

    The new incumbent in the ministry will therefore have to work out certain ground rules within the ambit of the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 drawing clear lines about its role. Clearly, autonomy does not mean freedom to do anything, but at the same time lays certain constitutional norms or reasonable restrictions.

     

    In the light of Article 19(1)(a) about freedom of speech and expression, it becomes abundantly clear that the government should not have any control over the content broadcast by All India Radio or telecast by Doordarshan unless this violates the Reasonable Restrictions laid in the Constitution or the Codes under the Prasar Bharati Act or the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995. But it may be difficult to stop the government being the financing agency from interfering in the management of the pubcaster.

     

    In view of this, it is also clear that the spending of the budget laid aside by the ministry for content creation should be left to DD and AIR without day-to-day monitoring by the ministry.

     

    Furthermore, there has to be greater transparency and quicker decision-making both by the government and by AIR and more particularly Doordarshan about the programmes it wants to commission or broadcast. It is understood that some proposals from independent producers have been pending in DD for almost a decade.   

     

    The Sam Pitroda Committee on Prasar Bharati is generally repetitive of the provisions of the Prasar Bharati Act, but may help to speed up some processes. The new Minister will therefore have to immediately hold wide-ranging consultations with all stakeholders and take action on the report.

     

    There is little doubt that DD and AIR are today broadcasting programmes that no private operator dares to do because of the loss of eyeballs (TRPs).

     

    DOORDARSHAN

     

    While Doordarshan has made appreciable progress in terms of popularity in semi-urban or urban areas even as it holds the top spot in rural India, there is urgent need to take steps to market the channel even better. While its programmes have become entertaining even as they serve the public by sending out direct or indirect messages, the general perception is to the contrary.

     

    DD also needs to bring certain channels that are only known in certain regions to the national level. These include DD Bharati, DD Urdu, DD Kashir, and the DD channels in the north east. Greater facility for dubbing popular serials in Hindi would help in this effort.

     

    AIR

     

    The audio wing of Prasar Bharati has been treated in a somewhat step-motherly fashion since DD began to grow. There is urgent need to reverse that by getting more people to tune in to radio just the way they tune in to DD.

     

    This can clearly be done by bringing All India Radio’s National channel and the popular Vividh Bharati channel onto the FM networks so that it is heard in the same way as private FM channels or FM Gold and FM Rainbow.

     

    AIR has already spent crores of rupees on creating the basic infrastructure for Digital Radio Mondiale, which can make medium-wave or short wave programmes accessible to listeners. The only lacunae appear to be the absence of reasonably priced receivers, and the reluctance of the present Prasar Bharati CEO to the growth of this medium.

     

    While manufacturers have come forward to produce reasonably priced receivers for use on mobiles, cars or at home, the Government is pushing ahead its programme for the third phase of FM Radio expansion and this is the right time to pursue as DRM sets are also FM compatible. 

     

    TELECOM REGULATORY AUTHORITY OF INDIA

     

    Of late, far too many cases have been going to the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) with relation to broadcasting but the problem has been complicated further by the judgment of the Supreme Court that TRAI regulations should not be adjudicated upon by TDSAT.

     

    Clearly, there is need for TRAI to pay greater heed to its regulations relating to the broadcasting and cable sectors. But since its primary objective has always been telecom, the government will have to consider whether there is need for a separate Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI), something which has been tossed around for the past 15 years.

     

    Allegations are that broadcasters tend to get the TRAI’s hearing more. But in recent times it has been reaching out to more and more cable TV operators when they come up with a logical discussion and argument flow. Perhaps a new BRAI – also provided for in the proposed Broadcast Services Bill – with clearer objectives may help overcome not only the prejudices that are alleged against TRAI.

     

    The new body could also look at the high taxation down the line – from that levied on manufacturers, broadcasters, cable and other service operators like DTH and HITS, and the consumers (viewers).

     

    BARC

     

    The Broadcast Audience Research Council aimed at replacing the outdated present TAM system needs to be expedited.  This may also help the broadcasting industry overcome the hurdles created by the 12-minute ad cap since it will bring in greater transparency.

     

    SELF-REGULATION

     

    Self-regulation is healthy as the TV channels will accept decisions of their own ilk more easily than those dictated by the government. It seems to be working well, and it’s best left like that. Content regulation is any way the MIB’s domain, and it can step in and bang its fist on the table if things get out of hand.

    One option being mentioned is that the Inter-Ministerial Committee of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry be vested with greater powers and also made more broad-based with representatives of more ministries, while permitting some civil society intellectuals apart from representatives of News Broadcasting Services Authority (NBSA), the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) or the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) as ex-officio members.

     

    Furthermore, all the decisions taken by the NBSA, BCCC or ASCI should be finally whetted by the IMC before being made public. The primary purpose of this move would be to ensure that even channels that are not members of these bodies can be covered if the directive comes from the Ministry’s IMC.

     

    DIGITAL ACCESS SYSTEM

     

    There is little doubt that the experience of the first two phases of DAS has shown that around 30-40 per cent of the cities covered are still broadcasting on analogue mode. Clearly, there has to be re-think not only on whether the next two phases should be combined (as planned by the outgoing government) or relaxed into more phases with a greater time span, and on whether the regulations drawn up by TRAI in this regard need to be looked at again, since both the consumers and the cable operators appear unhappy.

     

    DAVP

     

    Presently, the DAVP gives advertisements to help small and medium newspapers or to propagandize the programmes of the government. It has also introduced short films for television channels or cinema houses, but the rates it pays to the media have remained almost static, since the increases are more symbolic than actual whenever a new advertising policy is announced. It may be worthwhile for the government to consult all stakeholders including the Press Council, ASCI, Indian Broadcasting Foundation, News Broadcasters Association, the Film Federation of India and other film bodies before bringing out the next advertising policy. The recent move by the Supreme Court of setting up a three-member panel to discuss what constitutes advertising and propaganda will be helpful.

     

    FM BROADCASTING

     

    The initiative to allow transmission of AIR news on private FM radio on a as-is-where-is basis is a welcome move, but guidelines can be drawn up to permit discussions on entertainment or sports etc. by the channels themselves.

     

    Even as the process of the third phase has begun, it should be ensured that while on the one hand it is expedited, and on the other it does not clash with the DRM programme since that would force viewers to buy two different receiver sets.

     

    Undoubtedly, the third phase will help cover almost the entire country, but it has to be ensured that once the auctions are over, the procedures for clearing the channels should not only be speedy, but the annual fee should be affordable.

     

    COMMUNITY RADIO

     

    While the pace of the growth of community radio has not been good, the new programmes to provide finance to prospective entrepreneurs may help.  The introduction of awards for Community Radio has been a welcome step.

     

    Similarly, All India Radio programmes can be made available either free of cost or on a barter basis to channels that make good programmes.

     

    FILM INDUSTRY

     

    Although the film industry was given the status of an industry, little else was done to follow this up with positive action. And although it is one of the highest taxed industries in the country, the government has paid little heed to help filmmakers come up with original work. For this reason, the studio system that ruled the industry till the late fifties appears to be coming back with large corporate producers funding and producing films and independent filmmakers still facing an uphill task to find funds.

     

    The National Film Development Corporation though led by a dynamic leader Nina Lath Gupta has been constrained by a crunch in funds from the MIB. Gupta totally restructure and reinvented NFDC a few years ago until some distrust from the MIB saw funds drying up last year. It needs to have more money at its disposal, and it should be allowed to live up to its mandate of encouraging independent film makers and build a pipeline of more films every year.

     

    To overcome Manish Tewari’s view that the Films Division (FD) has outlived its existence, it would be a good idea to convert the FD into both a production body for its own producers and a funding body for independent documentary, animation and short films.  The government has to implement the decision of the Apex Court given almost two decades earlier that film magazines of the FD have to be compulsorily exhibited in cinema houses.

     

    But perhaps the most important problem is the high taxation by the government which still treats cinema as a service industry under the Shops and Establishment Act which treats lotteries on the same footing. Lower taxes – and abolition of entertainment tax – will not only help filmmakers, but also bring in more entrepreneurs to build cinema houses which have depleted to just around 10,000 for a country which has a population that is much larger.  

     

    FILM CENSORSHIP

     

    The Film Certification Guidelines under the Cinematograph Act 1952 were last amended in December 1991. If films have become more lax in showing violence or sex-oriented scenes, it is because society all around has changed and so have the members of the Central Board of Film Certification. It is therefore necessary for the new Minister to ensure that the guidelines reflect the level of acceptance of certain norms in society that were a taboo two or three decades earlier.

     

    Phew! Undoubtedly, all this presents a daunting task for the government. But good governance is known by what it does, not by what it claims it will do.

  • Manish Tewari’s views on I&B appear to be thinking of a frustrated mind

    Manish Tewari’s views on I&B appear to be thinking of a frustrated mind

    NEW DELHI: It is a well known truism that the administrative arm of the government is not run by politicians but by bureaucrats. And while there have been many cases where a minister had to bow because the bureaucracy in his own ministry did not support him or her, it is only seldom that the politician allows himself to be cowed down.

     

    One therefore wonders whether the statement by outgoing Minister Manish Tewari that there is no relevance of Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B) and that it belongs to ‘an era that is past’ is something that comes out of his own wisdom or his frustration in dealing with an ex-bureaucrat who now heads the public service broadcaster.

     

    Coming as it does on the eve of the government going out of office, the statement is either way misplaced. It is now open to the new government to decide whether this ministry needs to remain or go.

     

    And clearly, ‘Broadcasting’ does not mean just Prasar Bharati in a scenario where not only has the radio and television industry grown by leaps and bounds, but needs controls and regulations that only a Ministry can handle.

     

    At the same time, ‘Information’ does not just mean giving information to the people through the media and goes much beyond to an administrative regulatory role over various media units of the government. If this Ministry has no relevance today, one winders who will monitor the working of these media units!

     

    Experience of the past decades has shown that the role of the I&B Minister has probably been totally misunderstood by the heads of government. Because the designation says ‘Information’, the government thinks that it has to be led by a person who is well versed with the policies of not only the government but also the ruling party.

     

    Tewari, therefore, often found himself answering questions about the ruling party rather than his Ministry whenever he was mobbed by the media, particularly electronic media looking for sensational bytes!

     

    Factually speaking, questions about government policies should have been tackled by the Director General (Media and Communication) in the Press Information Bureau and those about the party by the official party spokespersons speaking in the respective party offices.

     

    Clearly, the government took ‘Information’ to mean ‘Information and PR’, which is the kind of designation given to ministers holding this charge in the states.

     

    Actually, the debate over whether one needs an Information and Broadcasting Ministry is not new.

     

    The issue had also come up about a decade earlier when Sushma Swaraj was in charge of the Ministry.

     

    At that time, a Group of Ministers had been set up under the chairmanship of the then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha on the possibility of setting a Convergence Commission and also piloting a convergence bill. This was being considered as it was felt that Broadcasting and Information Technology were gradually merging.

     

    The issue could not be resolved even after several meetings of the GoM, and the whole thing was put in cold storage because of the change of government in 2004.

     

    While the then Communication and Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan and the then Law Minister Arun Jaitley appeared to be in favour of the Commission, it is understood that it was vehemently opposed by Swaraj.

     

    The possible reason for this is not far to seek: if a Convergence Commission (which would have also made the Prasar Bharati Act redundant) had been indeed approved, then the chances were that broadcasting ministry would have gone to the IT Minister and Swaraj would have been left with only Information and thus a reduced portfolio in terms of power – something no senior politician can afford to let go.

     

    As far as the broadcasting side goes, surely Tewari knows there is more to broadcasting than dealing with a former bureaucrat who insists that the government has backed out after creating an autonomous Prasar Bharati, by still keeping most powers to itself.

     

    The view of Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar, who has also chosen the current time to express them in writing in an article in a popular magazine, may have its own merit. And while one could always argue on whether a public service broadcaster almost totally dependent for its existence and funds on the government can expect full autonomy!

     

    But he has deliberately chosen to air his views about ‘covert control raj’ to coincide with the entry of a new government and as well as the interview of Narendra Modi on Doordarshan. Interestingly, even DD News Director General S M Khan has gone on record to say that the decision to make cuts in the interview had nothing to do with the Ministry and were done internally by DD News staff as they wanted the interview to be more balanced.

     

    As a matter of fact, one wonders whether Prasar Bharati which was conceived at a time when only Doordarshan and All India Radio existed has a place in a scenario dominated by private radio and TV channels!

     

    And one can hardly deny that there are very few countries in the world which do not have radio or television channels of their own, and many even own news agencies and newspapers.

     

    In a country as large in population as India and with a low literacy rate, surely no one can deny that the government needs to have a channel to disseminate information about its programmes, and help people learn about their powers. And there is little gain saying the fact that both Doordarshan and All India Radio are today airing programmes which private channels running after TRPs and advertisers cannot do.

     

    Tewari’s view therefore about the “inherent redundancy” of the Ministry itself appears redundant.

     

    Perhaps his views about the Films Division can be judged on the same footing. While the Division has undergone various changes from the weekly news reviews to magazines and now short films, it is also an institution that is doing things no private agency would do and this is also becoming clear from the increasing number of National awards its films have been winning, apart from the fact that it was chosen by the Ministry itself to manage the country’s only Museum on Indian Cinema.

     

    The fate of private television and film training schools is also well-known as they end up as shops that want to give quick training but charge high fees. In that scenario, both the Film and Television Institute of India and the Satyajit Ray FTII have to remain under the I&B Ministry, though there one can hardly deny that greater participation of the private sector – particularly the film industry and TV channels – would help.

     

    In fact, Tewari himself had said in November 2012 that ‘however archaic its structure might be, I&B over a period of time seems to have got the nuances fairly right. It is to a very large extent, hands-off. If you were to abolish the ministry, what would you replace it with?’

     

    Interestingly, Tewari had initiated steps to grant more autonomy to it by constituting the Sam Pitroda Committee.

     

    Irrespective of which party comes to power, I&B is a subjects that will remain with the central government if there has to be a continuity of policy as far as the media and even freedom of speech and expression is concerned, especially in a country where business houses are waiting to gobble up whatever freedom the media enjoys today.

  • Govt. seeks public view on advertising guidelines

    Govt. seeks public view on advertising guidelines

    NEW DELHI: The government has sought the views of the general public following a Supreme Court verdict that an Advertisement Code needs to be drawn up to differentiate between advertisements about government messaging and those that are politically motivated and designed to patronise media organization and get favourable media coverage.

     

    In its verdict on 23 April, the apex court set up a three-member committee for this purpose, to be coordinated by Information and Broadcasting Ministry secretary Bimal Julka, which held its first meeting on 5 May. The Committee has been asked to submit its report within three months, and so various stakeholders have been asked to submit their views within four weeks.     

     

    The Court wanted substantive guidelines to be laid down until the legislature enacts a law in this regard.

     

    The Court felt that the Advertising Code of the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity did not draw this distinction.

     

    The petitions had been filed by Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation. 

  • Government warns News channel for showing disturbing visuals in news bulletins

    Government warns News channel for showing disturbing visuals in news bulletins

    NEW DELHI: The government has sent a warning to DY 365 News channel for showing ‘extremely disturbing visuals of dead bodies and badly injured people including children’ that ‘were not only disturbing but may also hurt the sentiments of the viewers.’

     

    The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has asked the channel to strictly adhere to the terms of permission granted to uplink it on 30 July 2008 and under

    Section 20 of the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995.

     

    The Ministry said it had issued the notice, after the channel had telecast News bulletins on 12 May 2013, 22 February 2013, 2 February 2013, 2 November 2012, 4 October 2O12, 2 September 2012, 26 July 2012, 22 July 2012, 9 July 2012 and 3 July 2012 in different bulletins visuals that were ‘neither morphed nor blurred in keeping with the sensitivities of the victim’s families as well as viewers.’

     

    Hence the Ministry found that these visuals appear to offend good taste and decency and do not appear to be suitable for children and for unrestricted public exhibition.

     

    A show cause notice was sent to the channel on 26 September last year in reply to which the channel took the excuse that the faces had been shown so that their relatives could identify them and ‘there was no deliberate or intentional motive of the channel to show faces of the deceased in the news programme’. The channel also offered an unconditional apology.

     

    In view of the reply, the Inter-Ministerial Committee in its meeting on 26 February this year gave a personal opportunity to the channel to present its case.

     

    The warning has been issued as the Committee was clear that the telecasts were in clear violation of the provisions of the Programme Code, particularly Rules 6(1Xa), 6(1)(o), and 6 (5) of CTNR, 1994. The IMC observed that even though the channel had accepted its fault and apologised for its mistake, it cannot escape the responsibility of ensuring content on the channel which must be in conformity with the Programme Code at all times.

  • MSM gets licence for two new HD TV channels

    MSM gets licence for two new HD TV channels

    NEW DELHI: AXN HD and SET HD, both from the Multi Screen Media (MSM) bouquet, are the only two private television channels permitted for downlinking into the country during 2014.

     

    All the other nine channels which got permissions in the first four months of 2014 are to be uplinked from within the country. These include the news channels NSN News, VIP News (earlier known as Prabhatam NSB), Satlon News and Prabhatam Lifeline.

     

    The general entertainment channels are: Daati Ahsaas, Satkar, Hastey Raho, the Bengali channel Fatafati and Maha Movie.

     

    With this, the total number of private channels uplinking from or downlinking into the country has gone up to 795.

     

    According to the statistics revealed by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry today, the number of news and current affairs channels is 393 while the number of non-news (general entertainment channels) is 402.

     

    Of the total, 669 TV channels including 372 news channels have been given permission to uplink and downlink from within the country.

     

    The Ministry also placed on its website the names of the companies which own these channels, the language, and the date when permission was granted.

  • Supreme Court sets panel on government advertisements

    Supreme Court sets panel on government advertisements

    NEW DELHI: Pursuant to the Supreme Court order for forming panel to frame guidelines to regulate publicly funded government advertisements, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has formally notified the names of Bangalore’s National Law University director Prof NR Madhav Menon, former Lok Sabha secretary general T K Vishwanathan and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar.

     

    I&B Ministry secretary Bimal Julka will be the member secretary of the committee, which held its first meeting on 5 May.

     

     The Ministry said the report will be given preferably within three months of the date of the judgment, 23 April, by the panel after an intricate study of all the best practices in public advertisements in different jurisdictions.

     

     The apex court bench headed by chief justice P Sathasivam with justice Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana had said that the existing guidelines of the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) do not cover such advertisements. There was therefore a need for substantive guidelines to be issued by the Court until the legislature enacts a law in this regard.

     

     The court passed the order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the NGOs Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) pleading it to frame guidelines. The petition sought issuance of guidelines for curbing ruling parties from taking political mileage by projecting their leaders in official advertisements.

     

     It was, the Court said, ‘vividly clear’ that the DAVP guidelines, which are available in the public domain, only deal with the eligibility and empanelment of the newspapers/journals or other media, their rates of payment, and such like matters. Besides, it only specifies that in releasing advertisement to newspapers/journals, the DAVP would not take into account the political affiliation or editorial policies of newspapers/journals.

     

     “Hence, it is evident that there is no policy or guideline to regulate the content of government advertisements and to exclude the possibility of any mala fide use or misuse of public funds on advertisements in order to gain political mileage by the political establishment.”

     

    The Government in its counter affidavit claimed that 60 per cent of the advertisements released by the DAVP on behalf of various Ministries/Departments/Public Sector Undertakings of the Central Government relate to classified or display/classified category such as UPSC/SSC or recruitment, tender and public notices, etc. The respondents asserted that government advertisements sometime carry messages from national leaders, ministers and dignitaries accompanied with their photographs.

     

    However, government counsel K Radhakrishnan said the purpose of such advertisements is not to give personal publicity to the leaders or to the political parties they belong to rather the objective is to let the people know and have authentic information about the progress of the programmes/performance of the government they elected and form informed opinions, which is one of the fundamental rights of the citizens in our democracy as enshrined in the Constitution.

     

    The apex court noted in its judgment that the immediate cause of filing these writ petitions in 2003 and 2004 respectively was stated to be the numerous full page advertisements in the print media and repeated advertisements in the electronic media by the Central Government, State Governments and its agencies, instrumentalities including public sector undertakings which project political personalities and proclaim the achievements of particular political governments and parties at the expense of the public exchequer.

     

    It was also the assertion of the petitioners – Common Cause represented by Meera Bhatia and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan – that such advertisements become more blatant and assumes alarming proportions just before the announcement of the general elections. Accordingly, it was the stand of the petitioners that such deliberate misuse of public funds by the Central Government, State Governments, their departments and instrumentalities of the state is destructive to the rule of law.

     

    It was also alleged that it allows the parties in power to patronize publications and media organizations affiliated to the parties in power and also to get favourable media coverage by selective dispersal of the advertising bonanza. It was projected that the use of public funds for advertising by public authorities to project particular personalities, parties or governments without any attendant public interest is mala fide and arbitrary and amounted to violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. It was also argued that use and wastage of public funds in political motivated advertisements designed to project particular personality, party or government by wasting public money is also in violation of the fundamental rights under Article 21 because of diversion of resources by the governments for partisan interests. Such violation, therefore, attracts the remedy under Article 32 for the enforcement of fundamental rights of the citizens.

  • Only 56.8 % of registered subscribers on private DTH active by Dec 2013: TRAI

    Only 56.8 % of registered subscribers on private DTH active by Dec 2013: TRAI

    NEW DELHI: Only 35.81 million subscribers of the six private direct-to-home (DTH) service providers are active out of a total 62.97 million registered subscribers, working out to around 56.87 per cent. The private DTH players include: Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV, Reliance Big TV, Sun Direct and Videocon d2h.

     

    According to the Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicator Report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for the quarter ending December 2013, a total of 782 private television channels and a total of 242 private FM radio channels were registered with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B).

     

    This is apart from the FM radio and TV channels operated by Prasar Bharati. Doordarshan has 37 channels including DD Bharati and DD National besides four allied channels like Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV, Prasar Bharati sources told indiantelevision.com. 

     

    AIR network has grown up to 299 stations and 461 transmitters (146 MW, 48 SW & 267 FM) which provide coverage to about 99.19 per cent of the country’s population spread over 91.87 per cent area of the country, these sources said.

     

    There are a total of 187 pay channels, as reported by the broadcasters/ distributors for which the rates have been taken on records at the QE December 2013.

     

    The report says the maximum number of TV channels (Pay, Free to Air and Local) being carried by any of the reported MSOs in digital form is 231, while that carried by any of the reported MSOs in the conventional analogue form is 100 channels.

     

    The report showed that of the total 238.71 million internet subscribers, broadband subscribers totaled 55.2 million and narrow band subscribers totaled 183.51 million.

     

    Of these, only 18.33 million were wired internet subscribers while 220.38 were wireless internet subscribers.  

     

    The study also shows that 92.13 per cent of the wireless internet subscribers were on mobile, while just 0.19 per cent were on fixed wireless mode. A total of 7.68 per cent of the internet subscribers were on wired mode.

     

    Meanwhile, the number of news and non-news channels has almost become equal with the government recently revealing it has so far given permission to a total of 786 television channels in the country.

     

    According to the statistics revealed by the I&B Ministry earlier this year, the number of news and current affairs channels is 389 while the number of non-news (general entertainment channels) is 397.

     

    Of the total, 664 TV channels including 369 news channels have been given permission to uplink and downlink from within the country.

     

    A total of 31 channels including 27 GECs are allowed to uplink from India but not downlink – thus they are aimed at other countries.

     

    A total of 91 channels uplinked from overseas are allowed to downlink into the country. These include 75 GECs.

  • DTH operators to challenge I&B Ministry’s notice on arrears

    DTH operators to challenge I&B Ministry’s notice on arrears

    NEW DELHI: Operators of private direct-to-home (DTH) platforms, who recently received a notice from the government with regard to licence fee dues amounting to Rs 2,066 crore, plan to challenge the notice on the ground that the matter is subjudice and is pending in the Supreme Court.

     

    However, the DTH Operators Association of India is yet to decide whether the challenge will be in the form of a reply to the Ministry or an application in Court.

     

    According to the notice sent earlier this week, the six private operators have been asked to pay the amount within fifteen days.

     

    However, most of the operators contacted by indiantelevision.com said they had cleared the dues of licence fee.

     

    The operators say the licence fee as demanded under the rules is on gross revenue (GR) whereas they have been asked to pay the fee on the basis of actual gross revenue (AGR). The operators have said the fee should be only on subscription revenue and not on allied earnings such as dividend and interest income.

     

    When the operators insisted that they had been paying the licence fee on the GR, the government went to the Supreme Court on the issue and the matter has been pending for the past four years and is now expected to come up early next month.

     

    However, Information and Broadcasting Ministry secretary Bimal Julka told indiantelevision.com that the Ministry was justified in sending the notices since the apex court had not levied a stay order in the matter. Asked about possible action after 15 days, he said this would be done according to the provisions of the licensing rules.

     

    Tata Sky MD & CEO Harit Nagpal said that the demand of Rs 2,066 crore is the differential between the GR and the AGR.

     

    He also said that I&B Ministry had itself asked the Finance Ministry to reduce the fee from 10 per cent to six per cent but the latter had not taken a decision on this so far.

     

    According to the notices sent to the operators, Dish TV has to pay Rs 625 crore while Tata Sky has been told to pay Rs 620 crore. Airtel Digital TV has to pay Rs 298 crore, while Sun Direct has to clear Rs 230 crore. The Videocon-owned d2h has to pay Rs 157 crore while Reliance Digital TV has to pay Rs 136 crore.

     

    While DTH companies provide for 10 per cent licence fee on overall revenue in their profit and loss account, they pay less (only on subscription revenue net of content cost) at about five per cent of overall revenue. The rest is booked as a provision in the balance sheet, along with applicable interest.

     

    As of 31 March 2013, Dish TV’s closing provision pertaining to regulatory dues (including interest) stood at Rs 653.66 crore.

     

    Some of the DTH operators were hopeful that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India would bring down the licence fee from 10 per cent to six per cent, as proposed by the I&B Ministry to the Finance Ministry. TRAI itself had recommended last year that the actual gross revenue should be brought down to eight per cent.

     

    Meanwhile, the Parliament was told in April last year that the six private DTH operators paid Rs 307.8 crore as licence fee to the government for the year 2011-12, compared to Rs 177.8 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 126.2 crore in 2009-10.

     

    The revenue in 2008-09 was Rs 89.3 crore from four operators, since both Airtel Digital TV (Bharti Telemedia) as well as Videocon d2h (Bharat Business Channel) had not commenced services.

     

    The other DTH players are Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct TV, and Reliance Big TV.    

     

    Under the agreement with the government, the platforms pay a non-refundable entry fee of Rs 10 crore and an annual fee equivalent to 10 per cent of its gross revenue every financial year. Thus, the platforms have paid Rs 60 crore as one-time entry fee.

     

    According to figures furnished in the reply to the Parliament, Tata Sky paid licence fee of Rs 79.3 crore in 2011-12 as against Airtel Digital’s Rs 61.87 crore and Dish TV’s Rs 30 crore. Sun Direct paid Rs 36 crore, Reliance Big TV paid Rs 9.5 crore, and Videocon d2h paid Rs 5 crore.

     

    DTH services are governed by the DTH guidelines and terms and conditions issued by the I&B Ministry on 15 March 2001 and amended from time to time.    

     

    The seven DTH players in the country including Doordarshan’s free-to-air Freedish cover around 3.5 crore TV homes. Freedish currently has 59 slots including 22 of its own and which it hopes to increase to 97 by the end of this year and ultimately to 250 slots over the next two years.