Coming soon, if at all: Code with cuts

NEXT CHANGE: The Da Vinci Code, but with a few cuts. India is likely to follow 36 other countries that allowed the screening of the movie with minor changes or a warning. Government sources, who almost ruled out a ban, told HT that some objectionable scenes could be censored when the film's certification was reviewed on Thursday -- a day ahead of its worldwide release.

Published on: May 18, 2006, 14:10:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

NEXT CHANGE: The Da Vinci Code, but with a few cuts. India is likely to follow 36 other countries that allowed the screening of the movie with minor changes or a warning. Government sources, who almost ruled out a ban, told HT that some objectionable scenes could be censored when the film's certification was reviewed on Thursday -- a day ahead of its worldwide release.

The show outside the cinema halls had its twists and turns as the I&B Ministry threw up a suspense to match the Dan Brown thriller.

On Tuesday, I&B Minister P.R. Dasmunshi had said he would watch The Da Vinci Code and decide whether to screen it in India or not. On Wednesday, after watching the film at a special screening -- even before its premiere at Cannes -- Dasmunshi said the Censor Board would take a call on Thursday evening.

The minister said the representatives of various Christian bodies who watched the film would submit their views. The ministry will then forward its observations along with the objections of the Christian community to the board.

"The ministry can only forward its observations and ask the board to review its certification," said a ministry official. The censors had earlier told the distributors that the movie would get an A rating if a disclaimer that the movie was a work of fiction was carried at the beginning.

While at Cannes a senior official of the Catholic Church said the movie was so "unbelievable" that it posed no threat to faith, in India the protests go on. The Catholic Social Forum has filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, seeking action against Censor Board chief Sharmila Tagore for clearing the movie.

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

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.