[cr-india] I&B minister broadcasts himself

[sajan venniyoor]

There's an ad in today's Hindustan Times (Delhi edition), 11.2.2007:

"BBC presents 'Ek Mulaqaat' every Sunday at 12 noon, exclusively on Radio One FM 94.3! Tune in today to meet the Minister for Information & Broadcasting..."

Obviously, the Indian government has no issues with a foreign, state-run broadcaster - BBC Worldwide is the 'wholly-owned' commercial arm of BBC - owning a slice of an Indian FM channel, and broadcasting under the Beeb's name. Did someone mention 'national security'?

More importantly, it is nice to know that an interview with the I&B Minister does not come under 'Current Affairs', which of course is banned on private radio. In fact, Mid-Day/BBC Worldwide - which has licenses in 7 Indian cities - has a "journalistic team to develop content" in segments like business, travel, sports, entertainment, fashion, education, fashion etc, none of which is apparently covered under the rubric 'News & Current Affairs'.

Exchange4media (Nov 20) had once raised this issue with the same I&B Minister:

"When pointed out that even without the government’s permission FM stations were carrying news and current affairs items, Dasmunsi said, “If somebody is doing it, there is enough power given in the hands of the district administration to handle it.” 

But when pointed out that there was no instance of government action in this regard, the Minister countered by saying that in a few cases action had been taken. “How many district’s information do you keep?” Dasmunsi counter-queried."

Sajan

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/cr-india/attachments/20070211/a877b542/attachment.htm