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NEW
DELHI: The number of FM channels in the country is expected
to go up to 266 from the present 152, President Pratibha Devisingh
Patil said.
In
her address to the joint sitting of the two houses of the
Parliament on the opening day of the Budget session, President
Patil also said that community radio has been given a major
boost through a new policy.
In
her first address from the Central Hall since she became the
First Citizen last year, she said the Indian entertainment
and media industry - including sectors like print, television,
radio, film and entertainment - is witnessing a huge growth,
conducing to numerous employment opportunities.
She
said that the government was focusing on strengthening All
India Radio and Doordarshan services in Jammu and Kashmir
and the north-east regions. The Urdu channel of Doordarshan
had already started beaming round-the-clock.
Noting
that the Indian telecom sector had emerged as the fastest
growing in the world with the addition of over seven million
subscribers per month, Patil said that a scheme had been launched
to provide support for setting up and managing telecom infrastructure
in rural areas to affordably and quickly expand mobile telecom
services. Identifying growth of electronics and IT hardware
manufacturing as a thrust area, a special scheme had been
announced to encourage semiconductor fabrication and other
micro and nano technology manufacturing industries. The National
e-Governance Plan, to make government transparent and citizen-friendly,
was at an advanced stage of implementation all over the country.
Use of information technology in about 13,000 district and
subordinate courts across the country has been initiated.
An integrated national knowledge network to provide gigabit
broadband connectivity was being set up to connect all institutions
of higher learning and research in the country.
From
2005 till the end of 2007, the target for telephone connectivity
to all villages had almost been met, with only 14,000 villages
remaining to be connected as of December 2007. Rural tele-density
had improved dramatically
Referring
to the northeast, Patil said broadband and wireless connectivity
was being further enhanced to improve communications networks.
Referring
to the Indian space programme, she said this had enabled the
nation to extend tele-medicine, tele-education, tele-communications
and other services both at home and abroad. A new Indian Institute
of Space Technology has been established to build upon these
successes. India's first unmanned lunar mission "Chandrayan-I"
is scheduled for launch later this year.
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