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Tag: Jawhar Sircar

  • Prasar Bharati: A ‘successful’ year gone by

    Prasar Bharati: A ‘successful’ year gone by

    Since 1995, Doordarshan has been trying to build bridges of communication with Indians living abroad and also to showcase its diverse culture, values and rich heritage to the world by launching its international channel.

    From March 2011, Doordarshan started availing of the service of ISRO’s INSAT-4B in both KU band and C band. However, the inadequacy of not being able to locate any significant global partners to distribute and connect DD to homes overseas continued. Doordarshan did make renewed efforts through Indian Missions to distribute its international channel abroad, but it could make little progress in this last mile distribution, because of several reasons. On the other hand, countries like Japan, Germany, China, Russia and France, invested heavily to ensure a global reach for their international channels.

    Over the last one year, concerted efforts made by Prasar Bharati to locate viable global distribution platform to DD India has resulted in an agreement with Deutsche Welle (DW), the international broadcasting arm of the German public broadcaster for a slot on the DTH platform of EUTEL SAT Hotbird 13 B. It is an extremely popular DTH platform and in Europe it was the logical choice for DD India to launch its overseas services afresh. Hotbird 13B has a total number of 1543 TV channels of which 1117 TV channels are free-to-air. A total of 124 English channels are available on this satellite, prominent amongst which are BBC, CNN, CCTV, RT, France24, VOA TV, Euromans, Sky News, Bloomberg TV, Al Jazeera, etc.  DD India will be in the basic package of the DTH service. The projection of India’s viewpoint to the global audience being  a dire necessity, Prasar Bharati has found a suitable platform with DW on extremely favourable terms on reciprocal basis which is no mean achievement.Placing DD on Hotbird DTH platform will also give it full access to the Middle Eastern GCC countries, where Indians work and reside in large numbers. The telecast trials are likely in a few days and formal launching is expected shortly.

    It was a feather in its cap and moment of honour for India when the Prasar Bharati CEO, Jawhar Sircar, was elected as vice president of the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) in 2014 with its presence in 63 countries, boosting its international presence.

    Doordarshan team has come up with new serials in the current year attracting more eye balls in the afternoon session of DD National creating a new record heralding resurgence of the public broadcaster towards fulfilling its mandate with renewed vigour away from market driven commercial initiatives. Meeting the aspirations of the people of Telengana, dedicated DD Yadagiri from Hyderabad and DD Saptagiri channels from Vijayawada for Seemandhra have become fully operational. Other major initiative was upgradation of  four Hindi channels as 24 hours channels as DD Rajasthan, DD Madhya Pradesh, DD Bihar and DD Uttar Pradesh  from the respective capital DD Kendras giving local look and feel enriching  the telecast with regional flavour.  The basic infrastructure to operationalise DD Kisan channel has been put in place by Doordarshan.  Concerted efforts are on to enrich the channel in the coming year meeting the aspirations of all the agro-economic zones with due importance to related fields and provide wholesome content to the agrarian population of the nation.  

    A major decision in 2014 was to optimise the huge advantage of Digital Terrestrial Transmitters from the four metros which are ready and from other important state capitals in cluster with ability to provide a bouquet of 20 attractive TV channels along with a combination of audio channels from each location with perfect digital output reaching the hand held smart devices equipped with tiny dongles or chips which are under field trials already. The technology is capable of live streaming content without buffering and circumventing ‘server down’ possibility fully.

    Doordarshan was in news for amateurish display by some casual assignees  highlighted in media exposed huge vacancies of creative professionals  in Prasar Bharati and absence of a vibrant mechanism to service the HR functions for cadre restructuring, removal of service conditions related anomalies, conduct of regular departmental promotion proceedings, induction and appointment of creative professionals after strict professional evaluation. After Dr Surya Prakash joined as chairman, the proposal for Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board gained impetus and its establishment looks to be on course.

    Prasar Bharati chose to strengthen its popular Vividh Bharati network in the metros by simulcasting in FM mode. While Kolkata has already commenced its operation, other metros are awaiting the launch. AIR’s 86 odd local radio stations across the country have already started simulcasting Vividh Bharati across the nation spicing up AIR’s airwaves in the cause of uniting India.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly Mann ki Baat – a heart-to-heart and intimate sharing of thoughts with the people living in every nook and corner of the country – is a shot in the arm for Prasar Bharati and AIR undoubtedly has emerged a clear winner in reaching the whole nation through all its channels. The programme has received spontaneous response from thousands of listeners spread all over the country including far flung areas. The broadcast has done the vastest disseminated public service through territorial, satellite and web modes.

    While AIR has decided to webcast all primary channels from all its capital Kendras, it has started field trials of its most popular Vividh Bharati as part of its internet bouquet of FM Gold, FM Rainbow and Urdu Service.

    The dream of CEO Jawhar Sircar is to connect the whole of India through FM-station utilising its existing terrestrial towers all over the country for mounting FM antennas and cutting costs and simulcasting its primary service to ride over shortcomings of Medium Wave transmission.

    For Prasar Bharati, creative dynamism has remained a challenge with innumerable competitors in the field. But its new team is optimistic to accomplish its mandate as a national public broadcaster to inform, educate and entertain the masses at home and abroad and achieve conspicuous deliverables in the new year.

    AIR has become the torchbearer of the Prime Minister’s clarion call for ‘Swachh Bharat’ i.e. Clean India mission through its extensive campaign so that it becomes a truly peoples’ movement and the Prime Minister’s dream of clean India by 2019 becomes a reality. To lend support to the mission, AIR launched extensively several programmes on all its channels, in a variety of formats. The objective is to bring about attitudinal changes and behaviour modifications in the way of life of people while making them aware about environmental hygiene and cleanliness.

    Apart from promos, jingles and slogans on the theme, a multi-episode serial in Hindi entitled ‘Des ApnaUjla-Ujla’ has been launched w.e.f. 2 October 2014.

    The yeoman service rendered by All India Radio (Radio Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu) during the recent devastating deluge, which helped in saving hundreds of lives, connecting families, keeping the morale and spirit high of the population hit by the worst ever natural calamity and prevention of outbreak of epidemics in the aftermath of the disaster, have all come for lavish praise from every quarter including the Chief Minister of J&K and the cabinet secretary to the government of India. AIR’s uninterrupted service during this unprecedented disaster became all the more laudable as all other sources of information like print media and other electronic channels had come to a grinding halt in the State during those trying days.Similarly, AIR’s role in effective disaster management communication during the rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations at the time of recent Hudhud cyclone in the Andhra coast and particularly Vishakhapatnam also won accolades.

    Vividh Bharati, the old faithful, is avidly listened to even today in the face of stiff competition from rival media, especially private FM radio stations. Described as All India variety programme (Akhil Bharatiya Panchrangi Karyakram), it was initially radiated on two high-power shortwave transmitters at Mumbai and Chennai. Later, the service was progressively extended to 37 centres. Today, it is a veritable national service owing to its country-wide reach, with several stations/transmitters carrying the service:-

    • Exclusive/dedicated Vividh Bharati Channels                            37
    • Local Radio Stations (10:00 am to 5:00 pm)                               65
    • 100 Watt FM Relay Centres                                                         82

    Almost all these stations operate on the FM mode. Till recently, in the four metros, the service was available only on the emaciated medium wave transmitters. AIR has recently launched dedicated FM transmitters in the metros as well. Availability of the service on 102 FM transmitters, not to mention the 100 watt FM relay centres, has further enhanced the exposure to Vividh Bharati, owing to proliferation of FM receivers, car radios and mobile devices. To begin with, Vividh Bharati was an urban phenomenon. Today, it is able to penetrate deep into the country side and is an ideal vehicle for those eager to capture the rural markets.

    The fact that Vividh Bharati simultaneously reaches a vast section of people of all hues creates a psychological bond of togetherness, building up cohesion and common values.

    The year 2014 is the 75th anniversary year of external broadcasting in India and the 50th anniversary of its Urdu service. The External Services Division (ESD) is truly the extended arm of foreign policy and public diplomacy. The traditional modes of shortwave and medium wave transmission have been largely replaced during the year by FM and internet radio bringing about a turnaround during the year. The highlights of the revamping of the ESD are:

    1. Enhancing the level of engagement with the MEA particularly the External Publicity/ Public Diplomacy Division on an urgent basis, MEA will carry details of important programmes scheduled for broadcast in the General Overseas Service (GOS), the flagship service of ESD in English as well as other services in their bi-monthly magazine ‘India Perspective’.

    2. Modernisation efforts of ESD like creation and maintenance of multi-media websites with live internet radio and Radio on Demand components. Trial runs for the websites have been completed and GOS has already been informally hosted and ready for launch.

    3. ESD has also created three round-the-clock web radio portals, featuring live streaming of all the services. These have also been tested and ready for formal launch.

    4. With a view to reaching out to the Indian diaspora and involving the PIOs in the development agenda of the nation and making them true brand ambassadors for the country, multi-media websites for the Indian language services of ESD like Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Tamil and Urdu are being developed, with content specifically designed to the respective  target areas.

    5. General Overseas Service is targeted to the English speaking listeners all over the world with the exception of USA, Canada, South-America and the Caribbean. To reach these uncovered areas, a dedicated multi-media website ‘airworldservice.org.in’ has been launched during the year. The programmes of GOS are also available on the web radio portal of ESD. A GOS programme on Gandhian Philosophy has recently won the best programme award for the year 2014.

    6. To augment reception quality of cross-border and neighbourhood services targeted to South-East Asia and some countries in the East Asia from Chinsura (West Bengal) and to Pakistan, Afghanistan and some CIS countries from Rajkot, transmitters were upgraded. This will go a long way to support the new initiatives of the Central Government to strengthen its relations and engagement with the countries in the neighborhood and also undertake counter-propaganda and perception management programmes in a more effective manner. 

    • The News Services Division (NSD) of All India Radio is one of the world’s largest news gathering and dissemination apparatus.
    • Harnessing mobile technology, NSD launched free AIR news SMS service to the public in several regional languages viz. Asamese, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit and Tamil, besides English. The number of people registered for the Service has crossed 5 lakhs, with nearly 80% opting for the regional languages.
    • Substantially increased its presence on the social media, reaching out audiences far and wide. Popularity of AIR’s Facebook page can be gauged by the fact that the number of likes increased from 7 lakh in May, 2014 to 17 lakh in November, 2014. 
    • Twitter handle @airnewsalerts is also gaining momentum day by day, from 2,15,000 followers in May, 2014 to 3,70,000 in November, 2014
      • To further strengthen its reach, NSD joined another online audio platform sound cloud in May 2014. Sound cloud is an audio platform which is used in over 200 countries and has a global reach of 317 million per month. Within short span of time, it has become popular and has nearly 5.4 lakh plays so far, with an average of around 20,000 plays and 800 downloads per week.
    • To lend support to the Mann Ki Baat programme, NSD has been carrying content of  the PM’s speech in all bulletins, national as well as regional, the later carrying the regional language version. SMSes, based on the content, are sent in several languages to the people who had registered for the service. A special static home page was created on www.newsonair.nic.in with a link to take people directly to live webcast page of ‘Mann Ki Baat”.  A special window was created for the webcast of the speech, uploading the text of the address on the website. PM’s speech was live tweeted both in Hindi and English simultaneously. What is more, it was posted on Sound Cloud, generating unique plays within a short span of time reflecting its appeal
    • A variety of CDs based on the prized possessions in the treasure trove of AIR’s archives was prepared, released and uploaded on AIR’s Youtube. Significant among these CDs are the audio cuts of Mahatma Gandhi, Bharat Ratna and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Marian Anderson and Dr. Martin Luther King (Jr.).
    • CDs based on recordings of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel are ready, with refurbishing in its final stage.
    • CD containing recordings on various subjects by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan is being prepared. Refurbishing of these recordings is in final stage.
    • 300 hours (approx.) fresh recording received from AIR stations have been digitized with detailed metadata. 3000 hours (approx.) of archival recordings have been deep archived with detailed metadata in Storage Area Network (SAN).
    • AIR has a humongous network of 590 transmitters serving 414 stations, covering virtually the entire population of the country.
    • Under an ambitious digitalisation programme, 31 old medium wave transmitters and five shortwave transmitters have been replaced by new DRM transmitters.
    • Archival facility was setup at Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai, facilitating digitalization and restoration work
    • Under the Special Package for J&K and North-East, several new FM transmitters are being installed.
    • Modernization and automation of existing Regional News Units.
    • The dream of Prasar Bharati to connect whole of India through FM-isation, utilising its existing terrestrial towers all over the country for mounting  FM antenna cutting costs and simulcasting its primary service to ride over shortcomings of  medium wave transmission, especially the dwindling number medium wave receivers, is fast becoming a reality through a phased progamme launched by AIR.
    • While AIR has decided to webcast all its primary channels from all its capital sations, it has started live streaming, on a trial basis, to take field trial of its most popular Vividh Bharati service as part of its internet bouquet of FM Gold, FM Rainbow and Urdu Service.  This has helped in taking the service to listeners overseas, especially the Indian diaspora, clamouring for it.

     

    (These are purely personal views of Prasar Bharati principal adviser Brigadier (Retd) VAM Hussain and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • Bangladesh gets archival footage from AIR, DD on Liberation War

    Bangladesh gets archival footage from AIR, DD on Liberation War

    NEW DELHI: Bangladesh President has received the recordings of transmissions made by All India Radio and Doordarshan during the Liberation War of 1971 from President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

     

    He recalled that valiant Mukti Bahini soldiers fought hand in hand with Indian troops for Bangladesh’s liberation. He expressed hope that these recordings will remind people of Bangladesh of those momentous times.

     

    Akashvani, especially the Kolkata station, played a critical role in upholding the cause of Bangladesh even before the rest of the world woke up. Unfortunately, most of the broadcast schedule and other interesting programmes were not kept in permanent format as archives because of several constraints. But Akashvani has been able to retrieve several tapes of that period and has already broadcast them for the last many years, to remind both India and Bangladesh of their shared legacy.

     

    At the request of Bangladesh Betar and the special interest of Mukherjee, a renewed effort was made by Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar, AIR DG F Sheryaar, and DDG, Akashvani Kolkata to salvage more materials from wherever possible so that whatever is possible is put out in the public domain before both the nations.

     

    Two CDs have thus been produced in the last one month containing recordings from the Akashvani Archives of 1971 and early 1972. They represent the contribution made by Akashvani to the momentous developments of 1971, that led to the War in December, the Vijay Divas and the subsequent commemorations.

     

    The first CD entitled “Liberation of Bangladesh 1971” contains the public speeches from Akashvani Delhi of the then Prime Minister of India and the Lok Sabha statements, interviews and speeches of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the surrender of Pakistani forces on the 16 December, the public address of Rahman in January 1972 and other programmes, that are mainly in Bengali.

     

    The second CD entitled “Struggle of a Nation” is based on the recordings of Akashvani Kolkata, contains documentations of important happenings and events from March to December 1971 and the speeches of the then Prime Ministers of India and new nation of Bangladesh and live commentaries thereof.  It also has the ‘Samvad Bichitra’ newsreel programme that played a pivotal role during the Liberation Movement.

  • Doordarshan Freedish to hold 19th online e-auction to fill four slots

    Doordarshan Freedish to hold 19th online e-auction to fill four slots

    NEW DELHI:  In a pace that has surprised many, Doordarshan is set to hold the 19th e-auction for Freedish on 12 December in an attempt to touch the target of 112 television channels in the next few months.

    Doordarshan has set a reserve price of Rs 3.7 crore per slot for the 19th online e-auction, though indiantelevision.com learnt that the bid amount went up to Rs 4.2 crore in the 17th e-auction held on 12 November. This came shortly after the 16th e-auction on 28 October.

     DD sources also said the 19th auction is to fill four slots. Earlier, Prasar Bharati officials had decided not to disclose the number of slots to be e-auctioned to prevent bidders forming consortia to bid or resort to other malpractices.

     Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar had said recently that the future of Doordarshan was in Freedish and digitisation. He had added that this may mean that some channels would have to be attracted to Freedish by means other than e-auction.

     DD Sources also said that while Freedish may be encrypted to keep a tab on the number of subscribers, it would remain free-to-air.

    The e-auction will be conducted by Synise Technologies, Pune on behalf of Prasar Bharati.   

     The reserve price in the 15th e-auction was Rs three crore and was raised to Rs 3.7 crore in the 16th auction.

     Prior to the 16th auction, the total number of channels on Freedish was 58.

     Meanwhile, a Doordarshan official declined to give the number of successful bids in recent auctions as engineers of the pubcaster had to test these channels before verifying any numbers.

     The eligibility terms and conditions including other relevant details for this e-auction are displayed on DD website: www.ddindia.gov.in.

     However, the participation amount (EMD) in the e-auction is Rs 1.5 crore which will be deposited in advance on or before 11 November evening along with processing fee of Rs 10,000 (Non-refundable) in favour of PB (BCI) Doordarshan Commercial Service, New Delhi.

     Applicants have also been asked mandatorily to deposit a Demand Draft of Rs 5,500 registration amount favouring  Synise Technologies, payable at Pune at the time of submission of the application.

    The time for every slot e-auction will be of 15 minutes duration.

     The applicants must provide details of the uplink/downlink permission documents received from the concerned Ministries with the applications to ensure they are not rejected.

     The demand drafts of unsuccessful bidders will be returned immediately or within a week after the e-auction process is completed.  

     

  • DD working to woo top producers for its nationals, Jaitley chairs meeting

    DD working to woo top producers for its nationals, Jaitley chairs meeting

    NEW DELHI: Several producers who have made some memorable series for Doordarshan have promised to return if certain changes are made in the pattern of the financial agreements with them.

     

    This assurance was given by the producers to Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley, Minister of State (MOS) Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and secretary Bimal Julka at a meeting initiated by Doordarshan director general Vijaylaxmi Chhabra. Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar and senior advisor Brig VAM Hussain were also present.

     

    The Minister said that the pubcaster wanted to revive the trust of the producers in DD and come back, and this was generally welcomed by those present.

     

    Hats Off Productions owner JD Majethia and also co-chairman of Association Of Motion Pictures & Television Programme Producers (AMPTPP) says, “The agenda of the meeting was that in the last 10-12 years with the birth of new general entertainment channels (GECs), DD had somewhere lost its glory. Now, DD wants to revive and expand its content portfolio with the help of top-line producers like us and bring back the long lost glory on DD.”

     

    The producers said that the revenue sharing model of DD was not acceptable to them as the marketing was handled by the broadcaster. Issues relating to Intellectual Property Rights were also raised since it was said that DD reserved the copyright of the works of the producers and they wanted an examination of this.

     

    On behalf of DD, they were assured that the pubcaster would examine the schemes under which serials are obtained since it has already stopped commissioning of programmes.

     

    It is learnt that consequent to the meeting, DD has re-drafted the guidelines relating to the self-financing scheme and will await the remarks of the producers before giving it a final shape.

     

    The meeting was attended by producers namely – BP Singh (Fireworks Productions), Sunjoy Wadhwa (Sphereorigins chairman and managing director), Abhimanyu Singh (Contiloe Entertainment) and others. It is also learnt that Chhabra visited Mumbai to meet some producers in this connection.

  • Future of Prasar Bharati lies in Freedish, FM Radio and internet radio, says Jawhar Sircar

    Future of Prasar Bharati lies in Freedish, FM Radio and internet radio, says Jawhar Sircar

    NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati chief executive officer Jawhar Sircar has said that the pubcaster would have to strengthen its direct-to-home platform Freedish and its FM services if it has to survive.

     

    He announced that Freedish was expected to go up to 112 television channels in the next two to three months but he had made it clear to the government that while most were coming through e-auctions, some popular channels may have to be ‘attracted’ to join Freedish since satellite television was the future. He said he was not opposed to digital terrestrial transmission but advances in technology may make it obsolete.  

     

    He said that when Freedish utilises its full strength, it will give the other DTH operators ‘a run for their money,’ while addressing a function organised by the Broadcast Engineering Society (India) on the occasion of Public Service Broadcasting Day.

     

    Similarly, he said he was conscious that FM was on analogue and may have to be phased out at some stage, but was the best alternative at present since medium wave and short wave were on the way out. That was the intent in his plan to simulcast MW programmes on FM channels. According to Sircar, AIR should direct its resources to strengthen FM broadcasts, particularly as even mobile phones and car radios could catch these signals.

     

    He denied that he was opposed to DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale), but said the present DRM will become obsolete by the time people are able to afford it and a futuristic version of DRM may be in vogue.

     

    He also felt that Internet Radio was the best alternative at present to short wave and asked the engineers to work on this.

     

    The day is marked as Public Service Broadcasting Day as it coincides with the only time that the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, ever visited All India Radio. He had come to the station in Delhi to make a broadcast in 1947 aimed at Hindu refugees from Pakistan then staying in a camp near Kurukshetra.

     

    AIR director general F Sheheryar referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to talk to the people through AIR and to the disaster management that AIR had helped in during the floods in Jammu and Kasmmir or the storm in the Bay of Bengal. In Kashmir, he said people depended either on the Army for help or AIR for information on how to get that help.

     

    He said the clear philosophy of the public service broadcaster was to do more than just entertainment as the private FM channels were doing. A pubcaster gave precedence to public welfare over pecuniary gain.

     

    A pubcaster also helped in development of languages and literature and taking forward classical art, music and dance.

     

    He said AIR had now undertaken a major exercise to record for posterity all the dying forms of folklore and folk music before these vanish.

     

    From six stations in 1947, he said AIR had grown to 414 stations at present. However, there was severe dearth of technical staff.

     

    Speaking earlier, Doordarshan engineering-in-chief N A Khan said terrestrial transmission was necessary for narrow casting.

     

    Meanwhile, he said DD had already begun using 19 of the 64 digital transmitters being set up to strengthen digital terrestrial transmission.

     

    Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, who was the chief guest, said that he had depended on AIR when he set up ‘Bachpan Bachao Aandolan’ to reach out to parents who had lost their children or to get information about forcibly kept children.

     

    He also lauded radio for its work when the country was struck by disaster like the floods in J and K and the storm in the Bay of Bengal.

     

    He wanted AIR to work towards democratisation of knowledge. The pubcaster could help the people march from despair to hope and the dissemination of collective construction of information.

     

    While AIR had united India, he wanted it to help create a child-friendly India.

     

    Three former engineers of Prasar Bharati –M C Aggarwal, G S Sarma, and A R Krishnamurthy – were given lifetime achievement awards. BES(I) president O K Sharma and AIR E-in-C Animesh Chakravarty also spoke on the occasion.

     

     

  • Doordarshan to conduct 17th online e-auction for DD Freedish

    Doordarshan to conduct 17th online e-auction for DD Freedish

    NEW DELHI: Doordarshan, which held an e-auction for some channels to fill up slots on the direct-to-home Freedish platform on 28 October, has again set a reserve price of Rs 3.7 crore per slot for the 17th online e-auction to be conducted on 12 November.

     

     The e-Auction will be conducted by Synise Techn0ologies on behalf of Prasar Bharati.  The reserve price in the 15th e-auction was Rs 3 crore and was raised to Rs 3.7 crore in the last auction.

     

     Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar had told indiantelevision.com earlier that the aim was to reach the target of 97 channels by October-end and 125 by March-end.  Prior to the 16th auction, the total number of channels on Freedish was 58.

     

    Meanwhile, a Doordarshan official declined to give the number of successful bids conducted on 28 October as engineers of the pubcaster had to test these channels before verifying any numbers.

     

     A Prasar Bharati official told indiantelevision.com that DD had decided not to disclose the number of slots to be e-auctioned to prevent bidders forming consortia to bid or resort to other malpractices.

     

     The eligibility terms and conditions including other relevant details for this e-auction are displayed on DD website: www.ddindia.gov.in.

     

     However, the participation amount (EMD) in the e-Auction is Rs 1.5 crore, which will be deposited in advance on or before 11 November evening, along with processing fee of Rs.10,000 (non-refundable) in favour of PB (BCI) Doordarshan commercial service, New Delhi.

     

     Applicants have also been asked mandatorily to deposit a demand draft of Rs 5,500 Registration amount favouring Synise Technologies payable at Pune at the time of submission of the application. The time for every slot e-auction will be of fifteen minutes duration.

     

     The applicants must provide details of the Uplink/Downlink permission documents received from the concerned Ministries with the Applications to ensure they are not rejected.

     

     The demand drafts of unsuccessful bidders will be returned immediately or within a week after the e-auction process is completed. 

  • Jawhar Sircar elected VP in Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union against heavy odds

    Jawhar Sircar elected VP in Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union against heavy odds

    NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati chief executive officer, Jawhar Sircar, was elected vice president of the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) in the ongoing convention and general assembly at Macau.

     

    Interestingly, India had deputed a delegation of just two members and one advisor from the public broadcaster, against countries like Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea which had over 40 delegates while countries like Malaysia had 30, Sri Lanka had nine, Afghanistan eight, Bhutan five, Bangladesh and Mongolia seven each, Thailand had 35, Turkmenistan had 15, Kazakstan had six, and Singapore had 13 delegates.    

     

    Defying all odds, Sircar won the election thanks to India’s emerging image heralded by conspicuous and bold initiatives of the government and the public broadcaster. 

     

    India wanted to be a part of decision making in ABU of which it has been a founder member since 1964 with AIR and Doordarshan.

     

    ABU has 264 members in 61 countries reaching a potential audience of 3.5 billion people providing a forum promoting collective interests of TV and radio internationally funded primarily by members. It remains the hub of harmonisation of technical broadcasting standards and systems, skill and technological development as also information exchange. It is the third largest of the eight global broadcasting unions, the representing largest geographic region in the world. Its Sports Department negotiates TV rights for major sporting events like Olympics and Asian Games,World Football Cup besides several other related activities.

     

    Prasar Bharati has immense stakes in ABU as India’s national public service broadcaster. Though Prasar Bharati pays Rs 50 lakh annual subscription, it had no representation in the general assembly held in Tokyo and lost the vacant seat of vice president to Pakistan in 2010.

     

    Prasar Bharati sources also told indiantelevision.com that sports rights which were earlier offered to PB on exclusive basis were unbundled and given only ‘free to air rights’  to accommodate ESPN, thus ending a long and continued spell of exclusivity. This was because there was no one from PB deputed at ABU when the Sports Group body was discussing acquisition of rights for Asian Games 2010.

     

    India hosted ABU’s General Assembly in 2011 after 15 years in a routine, officious and less-concerned mode with minimal participation and missing both the posts of vice presidency and a seat Membership on the Council.

     

    Consequently, Sircar led a three-member contingent to Seoul general assembly in 2012 and got Doordarshan re-elected as Technical Bureau member and AIR to ABU Administrative Council unanimously. Being member of the Administrative Council, PB then became eligible for ABU vice president but was trounced by Turkey Radio And Television Corporation which had taken a delegation of 20 against India’s two.

     

    The source said PB had no chance at all when all the countries like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, Macau and Hong Kong took 4 to 18 delegates to canvass and manage better deliverables. NHK Japan had 41 delegates, Korea 21 and China 22 in Hanoi General Assembly in 2013.

  • Doordarshan to hold e-auction for vacant slots on DD Freedish next week

    Doordarshan to hold e-auction for vacant slots on DD Freedish next week

    NEW DELHI: Doordarshan has set a reserve price of Rs 3.7 crore per slot for the 16th online e-auction for filling up slots on Doordarshan’s direct-to-home Freedish platform to be conducted on 28 October.

     
    The e-auction will be conducted by Pune based Synise Technologies on behalf of Prasar Bharati.   

     

    The reserve price in the last e-auction was Rs 3 crore.

     

    Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar had told indiantelevision.com recently that the aim was to reach the target of 97 channels by October-end and 125 channels by March-end.

    When asked why the number of channels to be e-auctioned had not been disclosed, a Prasar Bharati official told indiantelevision.com that this had been done to prevent bidders forming consortia to bid or resort to other malpractices.
     
    The eligibility terms and conditions including other relevant details for this e-auction are displayed on DD website: www.ddindia.gov.in.
     
    However, the participation amount (EMD) in the e-auction is Rs 1.5 crore which needs to be deposited in advance on or before  27 October evening along with processing fee of Rs 10,000 (Non-refundable) in favour of PB (BCI) Doordarshan Commercial Service, New Delhi.
     
    Applicants have also been asked mandatorily to deposit a Demand Draft of Rs 5,500 registration amount favouring Synise Technologies, payable at Pune at the time of submission of the application.  
    The applicants must provide details of the Uplink/Downlink permission documents received from the concerned ministries with the applications to ensure they are not rejected.
     
    The demand drafts of unsuccessful bidders will be returned immediately or within a week after the e-auction process is completed. 

  • Prasar Bharati’s channel of autonomy

    Prasar Bharati’s channel of autonomy

    Seldom have government ventures succeeded in democratic India for variety of beliefs and prejudices.  Inherent security has ensured complacency in government servants with invisible accountability resulting in almost every public sector unit crashing gradually but also becoming liability to the exchequer. 

     

    Such ailing commercial initiatives are numerous like Air India, IDPL and HMT to name a few.  As for pure government, the performance is not even measured to stem the existing rot.  The nation coughs up large sums on salaries to maintain archaic British systems founded on in fructuous and dilatory work culture. 

     

    Doordarshan and AIR, the once monopolistic moghuls of video and audio arms of Information & Broadcasting Ministry, with 48000 staff and huge infrastructure as part of Prasar Bharati are under siege from the commercial private channels. The staff is till date government employees on deemed deputation status with no powers to Prasar Bharati to infuse fresh blood or promote them in the last two decades of its existence resulting in a chaotic work force with rock bottom morale with no regulation of conditions of service for employees. Most programmers of Prasar Bharati have long forgotten to produce quality content, the cadre having been decimated over the years and the engineering cadre too losing sheen with administrative impediments and faulty staff pattern, with 1:10 teeth-to-tail ratio. 

     

    As of today, Prasar Bharati must be the only government funded organisation with 25 cutting edge vacancies of Additional Director Generals out of 33 and 148 Deputy Director Generals out of 151 in the programme cadre creating a painful vacuum of leadership that is meant for content creation leaving the reign of DD and AIR Kendras to lower officials or to broadcast engineers by default.  Though well intentioned, Prasar Bharati, the national public service broadcaster, remains a still born child even today with shadow of government continuing despite an Act of Parliament that envisaged emergence of a BBC like institution to educate, inform and entertain people of India and Indian origin abroad. 

     

    Successive governments could not correct the infirmity due to inflexible approach and archaic regulations providing a sure recipe for self-destruction and resulting in natural downfall in TV ratings and Doordarshan seriously lacking audience connect.  While talking of arm’s length in governing, Prasar Bharati, the successive government’s depicted its autonomy as an oxymoron which never exists in real life. 

     

    But for the first time ever, after taking over, Minister of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) said, “My aim was to make Doordarshan and state-run All India Radio first choice of viewers.”  Living up to the expectations, the minister has blessed Doordarshan on their maiden effort to reach Indian diaspora through Deutsche Welle, Germany’s Public Service Broadcaster, by riding DD India, the international channel on its Hotbird 13B satellite with the reciprocal arrangement of showing each other’s channel in their bouquets in DTH platform. 

     

    ‘Hotbird’ has a total of whopping 1117 free-to-air TV channels with 124 English language channels to include BBC, CNN, CCTV, France 24, EuroNews, Al-Jazeera to name a few.  This satellite being the most chosen one by European countries because of its polarisiation and technical reach of 120 million TV homes in Europe, North Africa and Middle East, Prasar Bharati undoubtedly could not have got a better opportunity. 

     

    Being a public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati cannot compare itself with other commercially driven private channels of India as far as telecasting current Indian views and heralding the cause of fine arts showcasing heritage of India and cultural diversity through vibrant content being planned for ‘DD India’. 

     

    Government of India was spending to the tune of Rs 24 crore-Rs 30 crore per annum since 1995 to 2011 by hiring transponder of ‘PanAmsat’ later ‘IntelSat’ without last mile connectivity and insignificant viewership. Kudos to Jawhar Sircar and team that has ensured Doordarshan reaches to 120 million viewers across the globe to witness India as it dawns through a new image Doordarshan. 

     

    Countries like Japan, China, Russia and France spend between Rs 4000 and Rs 8000 crore per annum to ensure global reach for their international channels. Prasar Bharati on its part strongly aims at a content strategy considering cultural and other sensitivities of countries that would receive Doordarshan transmission with closer cooperation with Ministries of External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs as it rides on its maiden success in recent times truly blessed by the new government. 

     

    For Prasar Bharati, light seems to be at the end of the tunnel with our new Minister and his practical positivity.  “Faith is the promise of tomorrow.”

     

    (These are purely personal views of Prasar Bharati senior advisor VAM Hussain and indiantelevision.com does not subscribe to these views.)

     

  • Prasar Bharati CEO Sircar’s letter about IIS officers not linked to action on DD News DG

    Prasar Bharati CEO Sircar’s letter about IIS officers not linked to action on DD News DG

    NEW DELHI: The letter by Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar seeking greater powers for the public broadcaster in postings of Indian Information Service (IIS) officers was not written in the context of the recent order placing Doordarshan News DG SM Khan on compulsory wait, sources in the pubcaster told indiantelevision.com.

     

    In fact, the letter was written on the morning of 8 August, whereas the action relating to Khan came late in the evening of the same day.

     

    Furthermore, the sources said this was an issue raised even earlier by Sircar and was only reiteration of an earlier view.

     

    It was pointed out that the issues relating to autonomy had already been listed in the Sam Pitroda report. Earlier, there were media reports that the letter to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry was linked to issues such as the allegedly “deliberately edited” pre-poll interview of Narendra Modi.

    The letter said Prasar Bharati has in the past two and a half years made several suggestions for posting and transfer of IIS officers which are still pending decision by the Government.

     

    Sircar suggested bifurcation by the Ministry of the work on a pro-rata basis and after which, postings of IIS officers to PB could be decided by the Prasar Bharati Board and orders issued, only after informing Ministry.

    “Since we are completely in the dark about career details of the officers, which are readily available in the Ministry’s files, it would be appropriate to share these with Prasar Bharati,” reads the letter.

    Sircar wrote that Prasar Bharati can be held responsible only if it monitors News Division and added that then IIS officers can also accept the fact that they have to work in tandem with Prasar Bharati.

     

    Sircar reiterated his proposal for a Professional Electronic Media Cadre within the IIS that could be developed by Prasar Bharati, the sources said.