• Govt's transparency code for TV quiz shows

    Submitted by ITV Production on Oct 17
    indiantelevision.com Team

    NEW DELHI: The government has asked all television channels to disclose complete information pertaining to SMS or call rates which are applicable to quiz shows continuously through scroll or display in the language of the programme and ensure that callers are not unnecessarily put on hold for long periods.

    Once a winner is decided, he/she should be informed immediately and no further calls should be put on hold or SMSs solicited, according to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

    Transparency and fair dealing is necessary in the conduct of these programmes so that the viewers/participants do not feel cheated or duped while taking part in such programmes, the directive says.

    In guidelines for Conduct and Carriage of such programmes issued under section 20 of the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act 1995, the Ministry has made it clear that deliberately keeping telephones on hold for long periods or charging exorbitant fee for SMS for quiz
    shows on television offends good taste and decency and is, therefore, violative of Rule 6(1)(a) of the rules under the Act.

    Furthermore, any misleading advertisement about these shows that does not give adequate information about charges etc. will violate Rule 7(1) of the Rules under the Act.

    The Ministry has also said a channel is responsible for adhering to the Act and the Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines and can‘t, therefore, take refuge under the excuse that a programme has been produced by a third party and the channels merely sell air time to these parties.

    Noting that channels questioned by the Ministry said they had no direct control over the production, format of the programme or any alleged calls received from participants, the Ministry has also made it clear that no channel can relegate its responsibility on the nature of the programme or advertisements. .

    The Guidelines came after frequent complaints about exorbitant rates charges for calls, and some callers being kept on hold for long periods, thus having to pay huge sums on mobile phone calls which are inflated for such programmes. Some of the complainants said the format of these programmes was such as to dupe the callers and viewers.

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    Information and Broadcasting Ministry
  • Uday Varma tipped to return to I&B as Secretary

    Submitted by ITV Production on Oct 11
    indiantelevision.com Team

    NEW DELHI: Uday K Varma, who had earlier served as Special Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, is tipped to succeed Raghu Menon as Secretary even as orders came promoting Supriya Sahu as the Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) in the Ministry.

    Varma is a senior Indian Administrative Service Officer from Madhya Pradesh belonging to the 1976 batch. He is presently serving as Secretary in the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Ministry.

    After Raghu Menon demitted office on superannuation, Culture Secretary Jawahar Sircar was given additional charge of the post.

    Sahu is also an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1991 batch from Tamil Nadu. She has until now been Director (Broadcasting) in the same Ministry.

    Sahu will be replacing Arvind Kumar, who has been appointed as the new chief vigilance officer (CVO) of National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), though he has been asked to continue in I&B Ministry ?until further orders?.

    Sahu had earlier been the District Collector of Nilgiris district, where she was the force behind the ?Say no to plastics? campaign to protect the eco-system of the hill station Ooty. Before that, she held the post of Additional Collector of Vellore district.

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    Uday Varma
  • Ordinance soon for changes in Prasar Bharati Act

    Submitted by ITV Production on Oct 10
    indiantelevision.com Team

    NEW DELHI: An ordinance is expected to be promulgated shortly to make changes in the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act 1990 following the recommendations of a Group of Ministers which examined various issues relating to the pubcaster.

    The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has done a comprehensive review of the provisions of the Prasar Bharati Act and has recommended certain amendments to the Act, which have been approved by the Law Ministry.

    Asked why these amendments could not wait for the winter session of Parliament, Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that the posts of Chief Executive Officer as well as Member (Personnel) were becoming vacant in December and October respectively, and the Government wanted to take new incumbents under new rules. 

    The GoM also considered the various recommendations of the High Level Committee on the Commonwealth Games headed by V K Shunglu with regard to the pubcaster.

    Acting against the then CEO B S Lalli had proved to be a long process with the Ministry approaching the President through the Prime Minister and the apex court appointing a Judge to probe the charges. The amendments also aim at simplifying this process and by instituting a three member panel comprising the Vice -President, Chairman of the Press Council of India and a nominee of the government, currently responsible for appointments of top officials ? to take action in such cases.

    Inefficiency, indiscipline and misbehaviour are also sought to be added as grounds for removal of a CEO, or the DGs of All India Radio and Doordarshan, apart from the permanent members of the Prasar Bharati Board.

    The GoM in particular made recommendations regarding the relationship between the Government and Prasar Bharati and the CEO and the Prasar Bharati Board.

    Not merely that, but the GoM had also recommended addition of two more permanent members: Member (Technical) and Member (Marketing).

    Earlier this year, the GoM also studied the recommendations of a Committee of four joint secretaries on disparity in pay scales of Prasar Bharati employees and also made some recommendations with regard to the waiver of some dues from Prasar Bharati. The Committees for studying the amendments to the Act and the pay scale anomalies had been formed by the GoM headed by P Chidambaram in June last year.

    The GoM had also given its recommendations on the Prasar Bharati Board?s proposal that the Government should meet 100 per cent of the expenses on salaries and allowances of the employees and 50 per cent of operating expenses of Prasar Bharati, while the pubcaster will meet the balance 50 per cent of the operating expenses.The existing provision requires Prasar Bharati to generate at least 50 per cent of its operating expenses as commercial revenue.

    The long-pending Recruitment Rules for 196 cadres of employees in Prasar Bharati were considered for forwarding to Government. Non-existence of these Rules ever since Prasar Bharati came into being in 1997 was a major reason for the huge backlog in filling up the vacancies and making vital appointments, something which has come under heavy criticism in Parliamentary Committees.

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    Prasar Bharati
  • Arvind Kumar to remain in I&B Ministry until further orders

    Submitted by ITV Production on Oct 10
    indiantelevision.com Team

    NEW DELHI: Arvind Kumar, Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, has been asked to stay on ?until further orders?.

    Earlier, he had been asked to take over as the chief vigilance officer in the National Buildings Construction Corporation from 1 October.

    Arvind Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service officer from Uttar Pradesh from the 1988 batch, had been elevated from the post of director in August last year. He succeeded the slot vacated by Zohra Chatterji.

    Kumar completed his five-year term with the Central Government in May but his term had been extended in view of some incomplete projects of the Ministry relating to broadcasting.

    Under IAS rules, an officer can serve for five years at the Centre and should then either be sent back to his home cadre or posted in a designation technically not termed as deputation.

    Singh has also sung for popular movies like Sarfarosh and Tarqeeb.
     

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    Arvind Kumar
  • CAT seeks govt response on Prasar Bharati union de-recognition petition

    Submitted by ITV Production on Oct 01
    indiantelevision.com Team

    NEW DELHI: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has sought the Government?s response on the petition filed by employees? associations challenging their de-recognition by Prasar Bharati.

    A bench comprising Member Judicial Meera Chhibber and Member Administration Dr A K Misra directed the government to reply by 17 October on the plea of the employees for derecognising their unions.

    The three petitioners - Association of Radio and TV Engineering Employees (ARTEE), AIR and DD Technical Employees Association, and the Programme Staff Association had approached CAT after Justice S Muralidhar of the Delhi High Court earlier this week said all matters under service rules should first be heard by the Tribunal and only an appeal can come to the Court.

    The Associations had last week approached the Delhi High Court challenging the office order of 8 September de-recognising all associations. The Court heard the matter for three days.

    The petitioners have alleged that Prasar Bharati had not only de-recognised their associations but also transferred 500-odd employees including 24 office bearers of various associations to different parts across the country.

    According to the petitioners, nine associations of employees were formally recognised by the management and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which has been talking to their representatives on various issues.

    However, the order of 8 September said no association of employees of the pubcaster is recognised and, therefore, no employee can be given preferential treatment.

    It further said all employees are to be treated in a fair and transparent manner and nullified an earlier order issued by Director General of All India Radio on 18 December 2008.

    The staff of All India Radio and Doordarshan protested against this move and observed a day-long dharna from 10 am to 5 pm without disrupting work on 21 September.

    In addition to the Union of India, the Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, Prasar Bharati Chairperson Mrinal Pande, and nominated member and officiating CEO Rajiv Takru have been named as respondents in the petition.

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    Prasar Bharati
  • Delhi high court upholds I&B notice on Sach ka Saamna

    Submitted by ITV Production on Sep 30
    indiantelevision.com Team

    NEW DELHI: Even as Star One has announced the second edition of the programme to be aired shortly, the Delhi High Court today upheld the show cause notice issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on the telecast of two episodes (17 and 21 July 2009) of the controversial TV reality show " Sach Ka Saamna" by Star Plus.

    Justice S. Muralidhar turned down the plea of Star India, and said that the content shown in the programme was "vulgar, indecent and against good taste and decency".

    He said the programme where certain individual volunteers agree to sit on the hotseat after having gone through a lie detector test violated the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Network Rules.

    Star Plus had on 27 November 2009 been issued a warning by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for using language that was vulgar, indecent and against good taste and decency in its programme ?Sach Ka Saamna? through the questions by presenter Rajeev Khandelwal or the answers by the various personalities on the show after a notice issued to the channel on 22 July that year and a personal hearing given later on 8 September the same year.

    The Ministry had said the channel should keep Indian ethos and culture in mind while formatting programmes, and enjoined upon it to strictly adhere to this guideline.

    The warning was issued under the Uplinking Guidelines, the terms and conditions of the permission granted and the provisions of Section 20 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, asking the channel to strictly adhere to the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 and Rules framed thereunder. .

    The Channel had been issued a show cause notice for telecast/re-telecast of the programme on 17 July and 21 July as the contents of the programme appeared vulgar, indecent and against good taste and decency. It was observed that the anchor of the above programme sought replies to questions regarding infidelity, incest and other subjects that were not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition, especially keeping in view the Indian ethos and culture.

    The questions and replies followed by a polygraph test, resulted in great embarrassment not only to the participants and their families but also to the viewers watching the programme along with their families. The questions appeared offending against good taste and decency; contained obscene words, appeared to malign and slander segments of social, public and moral life of the country and were not found suitable for unrestricted public exhibition.

    The Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) constituted by the Ministry to look into the complaints against violation of Programme and Advertising Codes had previewed the recording of the show and also considered the reply submitted by the channel before coming to its conclusion. It felt that the programmes were not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition. The channel violated Rule 6 (1) (a), (d), (i) and (o) of the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994 as amended from time to time.
     

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    Star One
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