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The Pakistan government, according to reports reaching Delhi, has
threatened to cancel the licence of all those cable operators who
had stopped cable services protesting an official ban on Indian
channels. The response of the cable operators was not immediately
known.
The Pakistani cable operators had blacked out cable services there
from Sunday in protest against a long-standing government ban on
re-transmitting Indian and those satellite channels that aired Hindi-language
entertainment programmes.
The soaps aired on channels like Star Plus and Zee TV are extremely
popular in Pakistan. A Press Trust of India (PTI) report from Islamabad
today stated that as the cable operators' strike in Pakistan protesting
the ban on Indian TV channels entered the third day, the government
toughened its stand threatening to cancel their licences if they
continued their 'obduracy'.
"If they continue their obduracy, we shall cancel their licences
and issue new licences to other parties," The PTI report quoted
Pakistani information minister Sheikh Rashid as saying.
According to the minister, the cable operators, who went on a week-long
strike from 24 August, did not inform the government about their
action.
Defending the continuing ban on Indian channels, the PTI report
quoted Rashid as saying that the Indian government imposed restrictions
on Pakistani channels following last year's military tension and
Islamabad had followed suit.
The report further said, the issue of lifting ban on Indian channels
came up during talks that visiting Indian parliamentarians had had
with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah
Khan Jamali recently.
"They were told that India had first banned Pakistani channels
and later Islamabad took a similar step," Rashid was quoted
by PTI, adding that Pakistan's policy on this issue would not change.
But back in India, despite a demand from a section of people here
there is no official ban on PTV channels and most cable operators
in India freely retransmit at least two PTV channels.
Of course, there have been times, for example during the Kargil
war, when the Indian government had appealed to the cable operators
to stop these channels over Indian cable networks, as they were
airing propaganda material.
Indian minister of state for external affairs Digvijay Singh, during
the recently-concluded monsoon session of Parliament, had also stated
in the House that there was no immediate plans to ban PTV from being
retransmitted in India.
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