In homage to the late Prof Kanetkar, the playwright who dominated Marathi theatre for the last 40 years, Tara Marathi will telecast five of his plays from 8 February to 11 February.

The plays to be telecast include "Prema Tuza Rang Kasa", "Raigadala Jevha Jaag Yete", "Mala Kahii Sangaychay", "Ashrunch Zali Phule" and "Akhera sawal".

Professor Kanetkar has won acclaim for his writing. In 1971 the Hindi film "Ansoo Ban Gaye Phool" based on his play "Ashrunchi Jhali Phule" won the Filmfare award. In 1984 he won The Sangeet Natak Academy Award for the best playwright.

A prolific writer, Prof Kanetkar has to his credit over 60 books, of which 41 are plays, eight are one act plays and four are novels. Tara Marathi has acquired television rights of 13 of Kanetkar?s plays of which seven have so far been adapted for television.

Information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday urged Prasar Bharati to take the initiative in improving the content of its programmes, since it had the "ultimate responsibility" of informing people about socially-relevant matters. Swaraj made her remarks while inaugurating the 7th International Conference and Exhibition on Terrestrial and Satellite Broadcasting organised by the Broadcast Engineering Society (BES EXPO 2001).

She further urged pubcasters Doordarshan and All India Radio to work out a cost-effective strategy to reach people in all parts of India informing them about developmental programmes and government policies among other issues vital for the country.

The I&B minister further stated that DD and AIR should focus on improving the content of their programmes. "The public broadcaster must espouse values which are not only industrial or commercial but which aim to benefit society at large. This is the basis of difference between private and public broadcasting," Swaraj said, according to Press Trust of India.

Organised by the BES (India), the event will run for three days and will feature companies from all over the world. State of the art broadcast equipment manufactured by leading Indian and foreign firms will be on display. It is aimed at providing broadcast professionals a platform to interact with each other, apart from giving them an opportunity to get well-versed with the latest advancements taking place in both terrestrial and satellite broadcasting. In its seventh edition, the event is said to be growing at a rate of 20 per cent per year. Nearly one-third of the participating international delegates are from countries like France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland, Netherlands, UK and US.

The central theme of the conference is Digital Broadcasting - Towards a Convergent World. The conference was scheduled to start with a tutorial on digital compression. The following day‘s event would focus on, digital audio and video broadcasting, and automation in broadcasting. The last three sessions on Day Three are expected to focus on issues of privatisation of broadcasting and regulatory issues, convergence and impact on broadcasting and direct to home television broadcasting.

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