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NEW DELHI: Doordarshan director-general Navin Kumar will
be the interim CEO of Prasar Bharati till a selection panel
zeroes down on a full time candidate for the post being vacated
by KS Sarma.
Sarma served as the CEO of Prasar Bharati, which
manages DD and All India Radio, from March 2002 to June 2006.
Kumar's appointment too would be a short one as the government
official is slated to revert to his home cadre in August after
a stint in New Delhi.
As Kumar will be functioning as the CEO
of Prasar Bharati, senior-most deputy director-general, LD Mandloi, will be the
acting DG of Doordarshan. Interestingly, before Sarma took over the reins
at Prasar Bharati, the then additional secretary in the I&B ministry, Anil
Baijal, served as the acting CEO for about 18 months.
Chief executive of the publicly
funded Prasar Bharati is chosen by a panel headed by the Vice-President of India
and comprising the chairman of the Press Council of India and a government nominee.
Sarma's over four-year term had its ups and downs, but he
is credited with successfully launching DD's subscription-free
DTH service DD Direct+, and steering Prasar Bharati's annual
revenues to over Rs 10 billion for the first time in FY06
ended March 2006.
It
was also during Sarma's tenure that DD News was relaunched and an in-house marketing
team set up to market programmes aired on DD and AIR instead of outsourcing the
activity, which, more often than not, ran into legal problems.
Though Sarma would not like to take much credit for it, but
he is said to have successfully lobbied with the ministry
to bring about changes in sports broadcasting, which resulted
in the downlink law being formulated that makes it mandatory
for private broadcasters to share feeds of listed events with
the pubcaster.
Also Read:
Govt
official tipped as interim CEO of Prasar Bharati | 
