The Hindu : Broadcasting Regulatory Authority to be set up soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 28, 2003

National

National

Broadcasting Regulatory Authority to be set up soon

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI SEPT. 27. The Information & Broadcasting Ministry is hopeful of setting up a Broadcasting Regulatory Authority in the near future, now that the Group of Ministers on Telecommunications has decided to put on hold the Convergence Bill and with it the effort to set up a super-regulator to oversee information, communication and entertainment.

Though the Ministry has for long been of the view that ``convergence of carriage was possible, but not convergence of content'', recent difficulties with the Conditional Access System (CAS) and Star uplinking have given I&B officials reason to hope that they can now push for a separate Broadcasting Regulatory Authority.

In fact with the Convergence Bill being delayed, the Union Minister of State for I&B, Ravi Shankar Prasad, had been hopeful of using the bitter experience of the recent past to make out a case for allowing his Ministry set up a regulatory mechanism of its own at today's meeting. The Ministry's contention all along has been that content regulation was its domain, and should be kept out of the super-regulator that was being planned.

While work had begun earlier this year under the then I&B Minister, Sushma Swaraj, to draft a legislation to create a Broadcasting Regulatory Authority in anticipation of a further delay in the passage of the Convergence Bill after the Standing Committee on Information Technology suggested 77 changes, it had been put on the back-burner by Mr. Prasad soon after taking charge.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National