New Delhi, Oct 13 (IANS) Despite its active participation in content regulation on Indian TV, the information and broadcasting ministry has suggested independent regulation by private players.
“The government feels that there must be some sort of independent regulation. Every country has it but India doesn’t. We have so many channels but no regulators. It doesn’t make sense to us that we should be sitting over it (content regulation),” said I&B ministry Joint Secretary Zohra Chatterji at the fifth annual India Digital Networks Summit (IDNS 2009).

“The content code has layers - self regulation and peer evaluation followed by independent regulation. The broadcasters came to us to leave it to them for some time. Above all, the prime minister has already made it clear that it (if anything is done by I&B) shall be done only after the widest possible consultations,” she added.

The I&B ministry’s involvement can be reminisced when it issued a three-month ban on fashion channel FTV in 2007 for telecasting obscene programming and yanking the channel off the air.

The same happened with news channel Janmat (now Live India) in the same year when it was taken off air for a month after broadcasting a false sting on a Delhi teacher that accused her of forcing students into prostitution.

The framed sting led to riots and the woman being jailed before the Delhi High Court ordered that she be reinstated in her job.

Chatterji also said that the I&B ministry has, however, “put regulation on events of national importance like sports. The right holders will have to share it with Doordarshan (the national public television broadcaster).”