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Tag: West Bengal government

  • West Bengal government to set up a film archive

    West Bengal government to set up a film archive

    KOLKATA: With an aim to set up a film archive in the state, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met Bollywood actress Jaya Bachchan.

     

    “I had asked Jaya Bachchan to work out a plan for a film archive here with the direct involvement of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan ji. It will help the industry here,” Banerjee said after her hour-long meeting with Jaya Bachchan at the state Secretariat Nabanna.

     

    Jaya Bachchan, after meeting the chief minister said, “I came here responding to the CM’s call for working out a plan for a film archive. The CM has also sought the involvement of Amitabh Bachchanji. I have submitted a proposal in this regard,” Jaya said.

     

    When experts were contacted they said that the state government plans to safeguard the heritage of cinema for posterity and act as a centre for dissemination of a healthy film culture here. “Familiarizing foreign audiences with Bengali cinema and to make it more visible across the globe is another declared objective of the state government,” an expert added.

     

    Going forward, the state might also look at classifying and documenting data related to film and undertake research on cinema.

     

    Generally books and periodicals covering cinema, festival publications, ancillary material like song booklets, photographs, wall posters, pamphlets, folders, disc records and other memorabilia on cinema are preserved by the research and documentation section.

  • WB govt to work with private cos to remove cable cobwebs from Kolkata skyline

    WB govt to work with private cos to remove cable cobwebs from Kolkata skyline

    KOLKATA: Kolkata skyline is trapped in a web of ever-burgeoning cable lines, which has given the city an ugly, cluttered and grey look. Addressing the issue, West Bengal Housing and Youth Affairs minister Arup Biswas said that the state government was ready to work together with private parties and take up the issue of cable cobwebs.

     

    Biswas further said that cable TV operators should meet with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) authorities and think on ways to beautify the city. He also proposed that if these cables can be made to pass through underground ducts, the city would look clean and the skyline would be clear.

     

    Additionally, Cable TV Equipments Traders & Manufacturers Association (CTMA) has requested the state government if the service tax, which is currently levied at the rate of 12.36 per cent, be reduced, as the players are overburdened with amusement tax apart from service tax.

     

    “Cable wire is a black mark on Kolkata’s beautification drive. The operators should meet KMC officials sooner,” said Biswas, on the sidelines of Cable TV 2015 show in Kolkata.

     

    CTMA has organised a three-day annual satellite and cable television show 2015, starting 18 February at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata.

     

    It should be noted that not only cable operators but private telephone operators and internet service providers (ISP) also contribute to trapping the city’s skyline in the mesh of wires. CTMA executive member Suresh Sethiya said, “We aim to propose to KMC that everyone who is using the pole for wires should pay,” said Sethiya.

     

    Sethiya further said that the KMC can give advertisements and then private players can put the cable wires in tray system and the unidentified ones by any player can be removed by the government authorities after 10 days or so.

     

    It was the entry of cable television in the year 1990 that led to wires being strung on poles. The number of cable subscribers grew and so did wires over pavements. About six – seven years ago, ISPs and private telecom operators joined them, adding to the mess.

     

    On the reduction of service tax proposition, CTMA secretary Kishan Kumar Binani said, “We have requested the government to re-look at the service tax. If they reduce it, it will work in the favour of all the stakeholders associated with cable TV industry.”

  • Saradha group to auction three TV channels

    Saradha group to auction three TV channels

    MUMBAI: The Saradha group chit fund scam that broke out last year saw huge amounts of money that never existed in the first place, vanish into thin air. Consequently the government stripped its TV channel licences and threw its chairman behind bars.

    Now the creditors who had lended money to the group are all set to get back their dues. A commission set up by the West Bengal government has decided to auction its three TV channels – Tara Muzik, Tara News and Tara Punjabi – alongside 200 of the group’s cars in order to raise funds and return it to the creditors.

     

    It also said that 16 bungalows and flats in which people had given part payment will be given to the owners completely after the leftover amount is submitted to the commission. Saradha group chairman Sudipto Sen was also present at the hearing who had been arrested in April last year when the ponzi scam broke out.

     

    According to a press trust of India report, while leaving he had said that he wanted all of the group’s properties to be auctioned to build the money to be paid to investors.

  • Mamata Banerjee plans to start state-run channel

    Mamata Banerjee plans to start state-run channel

    MUMBAI: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee loves to be in news, for whatever reasons. After gaining intense criticism and negative publicity over several recent decisions, she is now planning to launch her own television channel and a newspaper.

    Banerjee said today that she would start a television channel and a newspaper to disseminate correct information and publicise the activities and achievements of the government.

    She said, “I have already told my ministers that I want to start a channel and a newspaper for the West Bengal government.”

    “No matter how many good deeds we do, they are not broadcast in the right way, instead are broadcast negatively… That is why I think we have to do something good ourselves and that is why we have taken the decision to show the work done in West Bengal…We need our own news channel and paper to inform the people,” Banerjee said at a convention in Kolkata.

    Last month, Banerjee had drawn criticism after her government came out with a list of newspapers to be kept at the state-run libraries, keeping out some prominent English dailies out of the list.

    Last Thursday, she advised people in her state not to watch “some news channels”; they should instead watch entertainment channels. “Do not watch the two television channels that are spreading falsehood against us, watch Star Jalsa, Tara and Channel 10,” she had said while addressing a government programme in North 24 Parganas.