The Hindu : Front Page : Censor Board reconstituted

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Wednesday, Feb 09, 2005

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Front Page

Censor Board reconstituted

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 8. The Government today reconstituted the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), retaining three members in the newly-constituted 21-member set-up. While cutting short the tenure of the existing CBFC, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry also dissolved and reconstituted two of the nine regional advisory panels and is said to be in the process of changing the remaining seven.

The reconstitution of the CBFC comes nearly four months after the Government replaced the then Chairman, Anupam Kher, with Sharmila Tagore in a decision that triggered a controversy over political appointments. The reconstitution has been undertaken by invoking the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 (37 of 1952) read with rule 3 (in the case of the CBFC) and rules 7 and 8 (in the case of the advisory panels) of the Cinematograph (Certification) Rules, 1983. The three members who survived the reconstitution are journalist Mrinal Pande, Sanjiv Goenka of the RPG group and producer L. Suresh. The 18 new members include multiplex owner and film distributor Shravan Shroff, Congressman Anis Durrani, writer Himanshu Joshi and Priyambada Mohanty-Hejmadi of Utkal University. The appointments are with immediate effect and the members will hold office till "further orders."

In a separate notification — that supersedes the Ministry's notification dated February 4, 2004 — the Government reconstituted the entire Chennai advisory panel of the CBFC. Among the 42 individuals nominated to the panel are Tamil lyricists Kavingar and Mu. Metha, film directors Rama Narayanan and Muktha V. Srinivasan, A. Kamaraj of Nakkeeran magazine, Tamil scholar Erode Tamilanban and industrialist Nalli Kuppuswami Chettiar.

A similar notification has been issued to announce the reconstitution of the Hyderabad advisory panel. As many as 88 individuals from all walks of life have been nominated to the panel. They include writer K. Aruna Vyas, television artiste K. Jyotsna, writer D. Vijaya Laxmi and Congress leaders Dokala Murali and Potta Bharati. In the case of the two advisory panels, the term is for two years or "until further orders, whichever is earlier."

The CBFC and the two advisory panels were reconstituted by the National Democratic Alliance Government in February 2004 just ahead of the 14th Lok Sabha elections. Ever since he took charge, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, S. Jaipal Reddy, has been under pressure to reconstitute the Board and the advisory panels to remove the NDA appointees.

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