Bill also has don?ts for Bollywood

The new broadcast regulations of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) will not only cover television content but also films

Published on: Jul 4, 2006, 02:54:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The new broadcast regulations of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) will not only cover television content but also films.

A committee headed by I&B secretary SK Arora will soon submit the amended draft rules for certification of films under the Cinematograph Act, 1952. "The guidelines need a change as they do not cover all aspects film and television programmes," a ministry official said.

With the new guidelines, the ministry plans to regulate depictions of terrorism, violence, armed forces, religion, communal issues and obscenity in the movies. "The codes for movies and television will be similar as both are powerful broadcast media," said an official.

The new broad-based code for movies will be enforced by the censor board while certifying the movies. "We will seek opinion of the industry on the code before enforcing it as it should be acceptable to all," a ministry official said.

While the film code will take some time, the television content code is almost ready. The code will lay down categories for certification of television programmes, depending on which timings for the programmes will be fixed. For example, crime-related programmes can be beamed only after 10 pm and semi-adult programmes after midnight. As the new code has specific timings for programmes, the movies will have to be certified to fit the television code.

Among several options being considered to implement the code, one is appointment of internal content auditors in broadcast companies to ensure compliance. The second option is to have a body on the lines of Advertising Standards Council of India to look into the complaints. Another option is to let the Press Council of India look into complaints. However, the punitive powers will remain with the proposed Broadcasting Regulatory Authority of India for both television and movies.

For television, the ministry has already got the monitoring committees constituted at the district level, with which the consumers can file complaints. These committees can instruct the district administration to take action against the cable operator or the broadcaster at the local level. The new broadcast bill will also authorise the committees to recommend action against the channel to the regulatory authority.

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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