India’s emerging ‘soft power’ needs global imaging and for that the country needs an international television channel costing Rs 500 crore to the public exchequer and promotion of the Indian films abroad.
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These are some of the major recommendations of the working group on the Information and Broadcasting sectors to the government. To implement the recommendations, the group has asked for Rs 11,000 crores in the 11th-five year plan.
Demand for an international channel was earlier made by the I&B ministry but was dumped after there were not many takers for the proposal. In its new avatar, the working group has proposed a public-private partnership with annual government outlay of Rs 100 crore. The ministry has proposed a fully public funded channel.
It appears that movies and animation created a lot of interested for the working group. It has asked the government to set up a Centre of Excellence based on Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode in the areas of animation, gaming and special effects. Revamp of the Cinematograph Act of 1952 to tune it with changing technologies is another such suggestion of the group.
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To improve the quality of films produced in India, the government has been asked to lower the duties on digital prints and provide more financial incentives to the film industry. A target of doubling the export earning from films has been set by the working group.
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To improve the quality of films produced in India, the government has been asked to lower the duties on digital prints and provide more financial incentives to the film industry. A target of doubling the export earning from films has been set by the working group.
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The government has been asked to consider setting up of a news museum and a media city to provide single window clearances to make India as future publishing hub of the world. It has also recommended setting up of National Media Council for Press and television media but has suggested that the government should promote self-regulation.
Prasar Bharati seems to have lost to Direct to Home service. The working group wants no expansion for terrestrial network of Doordarshan and instead has recommended that entire India should be brought under the DTH service. It has also recommended enhancement of FM coverage from 40 per cent to 75 per cent in the next five years.
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.
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