ITV

Tag: illegal channels

  • India asks J&K to stop illegal channels, official unavailable

    MUMBAI: The Indian government has asked the administration in Jammu and Kashmir to take stern action against private cable operators airing illegal Pakistani and Saudi Arabian channels. Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu has reportedly directed the J&K government to submit a report at the earliest. 

    www.indiantelevision.com could not speak to the director (BP& L) in the information and broadcasting ministry Amit Katoch on the concrete plan of action in spite of several attempts last Friday as his assistant said he was busy.

    Jammu and Kashmir operators reportedly broadcast several channels illegally such as Ary QTV, Saudi Sunnah, Karbala, Saudi Quran, Al Arabia, Paigham, Hidayat, Sehar, Hadi TV, Sehar, Noor, Madani, Bethat, Ahlibat, Falak, Dawn News, Geo News and Ary News. A senior official in New Delhi reportedly said that the Kashmir administration had been asked to file an ATR (action-taken report). 

    While the Pakistani channels show anti-India programmes, those from Saudi preach Wahhabism, a concept of the Sharia law including the banned Peace TV headed by Dr Zakir Naik. A majority of around 5,000 cable operators in the Valley reportedly run these channels. The minister of state for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore reportedly said that he had asked the chief secretary Bharat Bhushan Vyas to submit a compliance report. 

    While the government of India has banned these channels, the operators in Kashmir cite the Ranbir Penal Code, a separate law in Kashmir, according to which the ban is not applicable. Reportedly, the I&B ministry meanwhile directed local cable operators (LCOs), multi-system operators (MSOs) and direct-to-home (DTH) platforms to stop the telecast of illegal channels.

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  • Standing Committee wants complete digitisation before amending act on illegal channels

    Standing Committee wants complete digitisation before amending act on illegal channels

    NEW DELHI: A Parliamentary Standing Committee has opposed any amendments to the Cable Television Networks (Regulations) Act 1995 with regards to illegal channels.

     
    Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that the Committee on Information Technology in its 36th report observed that the requirement of amending legislation may not be feasible in view of the ongoing process of digitisation of cable network as it can provide solution to address the issue of showing illegal / unregistered channels on the cable networks.

     
    The Ministry had been informed by security agencies about carriage of some unregistered foreign channels by cable operators.

     
    To address the problem of carriage of unregistered channels by cable operators, the Ministry had introduced the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Second Amendment Bill, 2011 in Lok Sabha on 15 December 2011 but this was referred to the Standing Committee.

     

    There are 93 private satellite TV channels which are Uplinked from outside India and have been granted permission to downlink in India under the policy guidelines for Downlinking of Television Channels.

     

    The scheme of enforcement envisaged under this Act is primarily through the authorized officers who are district magistrate, sub divisional magistrate and the commissioner of police of the State Governments.
     

    Whenever a complaint is brought to the notice of the Ministry, they are sent to the authorized officers since the action as per the Act primarily remains in the domain of authorized officers, the sources said.

     

  • Govt serious on tracking down illegal channels, teleport ops to submit monthly reports to I&B

    Govt serious on tracking down illegal channels, teleport ops to submit monthly reports to I&B

    NEW DELHI: The Indian government is getting serious on tracking down illegal transmission of television channels. In an attempt to step up monitoring of the channels being downlinked to the viewers, all teleports operating in the country have been directed by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry to submit every month the list of channels being uplinked by them.

    The teleports have to report the details of the channels they uplink latest by the 15th of every month. The directive for all teleports comes into effect with immediate effect, and the first list of channels uplinked or downlinked has to be submitted by 15 January.

    I&B Ministry sources told Indiantelevision.com that the monthly reporting to it will bring greater transparency and also help check uplinking of unlicensed or illegal channels.

    A teleport or a telecommunications port is a satellite ground station connecting a satellite network with a terrestrial network.

    According to the ministry directive, the teleports are to supply information about the name of the teleport operator, the STV licence number, the satellite being used, the names of all TV channels, names of the companies which own the TV channels, date of start of uplink, and current operational status.

    The teleports were hitherto sending this information every month to the Network Operations Control Centre (NOCC) under the Communications ministry.

    "It is less than a year that we started reporting to the NOCC. Now the I&B ministry also wants us to report to them. The government feels that this is a better way to filter out those unlicensed channels who get distributed in India. We have no problems providing such details," said a senior executive at Essel Shyam Communication, a leading teleport operator in India.