Axe may fall on few more 'errant channels'

I&B Minister PR Dasmunshi plans tough action against those showing 'naughty' content, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 6, 2007, 11:16:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The information and Broadcasting Ministry, which banned AXN a fortnight ago, is planning to take action against more television channels for showing objectionable content.

"I can’t reveal the identity of these four or five channels but action would be taken soon,” information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi told reporters on the sidelines of Social Editors’ Conference.

The minister said he was not against "naughty" content provided it was telecast after 11 pm — “people can spend sleepless nights to watch such programmes” – but he said he was "sick" of some of the things being shown on television.

These channels have been showing, the minister said, content that is against the basic societal norms and depicts women in a bad taste. “It is time for the government to take a tough stand. I am sick of seeing these things on private channels,” he said.

When asked if he was policing television, Dasmunsi said, “Yes, I am the moral inspector for television and I am serious about it."

The ministry has been under pressure lately on content. The Mumbai High Court pulled up the ministry recently for allowing movies with "adult" rating on television. Some non-governmental organizations have had complaints about a few advertisements and programmes.

Sony India chief executive officer Kunal Dasgupta was supportive of the ministry’s plan. “The ministry has been rapped on its knees by courts for allowing content perceived as insensitive towards society and in bad taste. The ministry’s action is totally justified on that account."

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan @hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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