MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry has cleared the decks for foreign financial institutions investing in television news channel ventures by issuing some modifications to the existing guidelines.
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Militancy is not the only worry of the people of Jammu. Currently a vicious tussle is on between the Zee Telefilms? owned cable network Siticable and Star TV. The issue - the Star link has regularly been on the blink at the time when its runaway hit game show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) is on air, the Indian Express reports.
"They are doing it deliberately, and even after 48 hours, the link has not been restored,?? said an angry viewer. Siticable officials, on their part, accept that they are involved in a legal tangle with Star. "Whatever be the problems between them, viewers feel that Siticable filed a case in a subordinate court only to avoid legal challenge from the consumers. Now they have a technical loophole to escape if consumers move the court against them,?? said the secretary, Consumer Welfare Forum, A Vashisht.
In defence, Siticable officials claim that Star TV has informed them of a survey result putting the number of connections in Jammu at 16,000, while Siticable claimed lower connectivity. A week after receiving a payment of Rs 1.55 lakh from Siticable, Star asked for additional payment on the basis of this survey report, fixing a four-day deadline.
Doordarshan has deferred to December 27 the launch of its channel catering to India?s northeastern states.
The channel was earlier to be launched on Saturday but in view of Christmas celebrations this was postponed, Information & Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj, said on Friday in New Delhi. She will be inaugurating the channel at Guwahati in Assam, reports Press Trust of India.
Chief ministers of all the seven states and Sikkim have been invited for the launch, she said. The channel will initially run for nine-and-a-half hours and will ultimately beam for a full 24 hours she added .
Swaraj said emphasis will be laid on local and regional items on the channel which is aimed at giving people of the remote areas better access to DD.
Indian information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj again resorted to some political speak yesterday on the convergence bill. She said that she was not aware that the Group of Ministers (GoM) was supposed to meet to discuss the Fali Nariman redraft of the earlier convergence draft.
Earlier she and information technology minister Pramod Mahajan had insisted that the GoM was to meet on 21 December. Later they could not do so because they were too busy to meet because of the pressures of Parliament, reports indicated.
Swaraj said that the Bill was very much a priority with the government and it would take efforts to get it into shape. She added that hardly one per cent of convergence had happened in India, so there was no point in saying that the regulation accompanying it has been delayed.
The group of ministers had earlier hurled the convergence bill ball back at Nariman to clarify the role of the spectrum manager, the name of the bill, and specify which ministry should play the steering role for convergence, among other issues. The IT,telecom and I&B ministry have all been jostling with each other take up that role.
The bottomline of Swaraj‘s statements is that the convergence draft will take some more time to see the light of day before being shaped as a bill. Following this it will be posted onto the Net for people‘s views. It will be placed before a parliamentary subcommittee before being introduced in parliament for enactment. The net is that, it is quite likely that it may scrape through in the budget session of Parliament, if things pan out. Or the industry will have to wait for the monsoon session.
Keep those fingers crossed!!!!
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MUMBAI: Malayalam channel Asianet and its news channel Asianet News have lined up special shows for this Christmas. Though the stress is being given to film-related content, the channels have also taken care to bring its viewers some special reports and live discussions. |
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Both the channels will telecast detailed reports of the Christmas celebrations, live chat shows and programmes based on Christmas film releases. |
Convergence is the new buzzword. But you wouldn‘t know it by the urgency shown by government ministers to thrash out issues related to the matter.
The meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM), scheduled for Thursday to finalise the Bill, has been deferred yet again.
The reason this time. According to government sources, the GoM meeting had to be deferred as members of the group were busy with Parliament proceedings.
No new date has been fixed yet.
It may be recalled that the Bill has already had two redrafts by the Fali nariman Committee before the latest redraft was ordered.
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The "icing on the (Christmas) cake" is going to be the channel‘s popular interview programme Chillujalakam which will have reining Malayalam superstar Dileep featured. The show will air at 12:30 pm. The channel has also lined up a filmy breakfast show featuring popular actor Jayasurya.
On the movie front, Asianet will premiere superhit Malayalam movie Nandanam starring Prithvi Raj and Navya Nair at 4:30 pm. Other movies the channel has lined up for the occasion include Mohanlal starrer Kaakkakyil and Bharat Gopi‘s Entey Hridayathintey Udama. 
Singer MG Sreekumar‘s musical show Sari Gama Pada Nisa will have a special guest in actor Kunjako Boban. The channel has also lined up an interactive programme with actor Kalabhavan Mani. Popular Malayalam playback singers will come together for a musical show Snehasudinam. The channel will telecast telefilm Kalanju Kittya Muthu on the Christmas day. Asianet has already started airing special Christmas greetings from popular personalities who belong to the entertainment, cultural and political fields.