I&B Ministry
I&B ministry clears Rs 29.7 billion expansion plan for Doordarshan, AIR
MUMBAI: As part of the tenth five year plan outlay, the Information & Broadcasting ministry has approved Rs 25.63 billion towards Doordarshan’s development.Additionally, Rs 4.11 billion has been set aside for the expansion of All India Radio’s (AIR) services.
The total outlay earmarked for DD and AIR in the Tenth Plan is Rs 29.74 billion.
As part of the expansion plans for AIR, a special package will be provided for Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the north-eastern states, including Andaman & Nicobar Islands (A&N).
This was announced by Information & Broadcasting and parliamentary affairs P R Dasmunsi yesterday in the Lok Sabha.
According to an official statement, 12 new/upgradation projects have been identified for the J&K. Kathua and Rajouri will have FM radio stations as part of the schemes.
Under Phase I, North East special plan, 10 kW FM transmitters will come up at Itanagar, Kohima and Port Blair.
Under Phase II of North-Eastern special plan, the undernoted transmission/relay facilities will be provided with
#10 kW FM transmitter, playback studio, staff quarters at Gangtok – (additional channel).
#5 kW FM transmitter, playback studio, at Silchar – (additional channel).
#1 kW FM transmitters, voice over recording/dubbing, field production facilities, staff quarters at 19 places i.e. Daporijo, Anini, Bomdila, Changlang, Khonsa (Arunachal Pradesh), Karimganj, Lumding, Goalpara (Assam), Ukhrul, Tamenglong (Manipur), Dawki (Meghalaya), Tuipang, Chemphai, Kolasib (Mizoram), Wokha, Zunehboto, Phek (Nagaland) and Udaipur, Nutan Bazar (Tripura).
#100 W FM transmitter at different locations in North Eastern region (100 places) to cover uncovered area.
Dasmunsi also spoke on the expenditure incurred by AIR and Doordarshan up to June 2006, which has been Rs 592.6 million and Rs 9 billion, respectively, informs the official statement.
Interestingly, under the second phase of private FM radio stations, the policy prohibits allocation of more than 15 per cent of total allocated channels in the country to a single company – including its holding, subsidiary, inter-connected companies and companies with the same management.
Moreover, networking of channels by any two entities has also been specifically prohibited.
Thus, following this restriction, the Reliance-owned Adlabs and Sun-promoted South Asia FM and Kal Radio had to surrender some circles to adhere to the government mandated national cap of 15 per cent. Both the companies had given up on the stations in the north-east zone to abide by the policy. For example:Adlabs Films had surrendered the frequencies, which included Gangtok, Imphal, Kohima, Port Blair, Shillong, to name a few. While, South Asia FM had given up Imphal, Kohima, Port Blair, Rourkela, Muzzaffarpur, amongst others.
I&B Ministry
India turns up the heat on piracy, orders Telegram to axe 3,142 channels and blocks 800 websites
New legal teeth, nodal officers and notices to intermediaries signal that the government is done playing nice with copyright thieves
NEW DELHI: India’s war on film piracy just got significantly more aggressive. The government has ordered Telegram to remove 3,142 channels distributing pirated content, blocked access to around 800 websites through internet service providers, and put the full weight of freshly sharpened legislation behind the crackdown. The message from New Delhi is unambiguous: the free ride for copyright thieves is over.
Minister of state for information and broadcasting L. Murugan spelled out the legal architecture to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023, he said, now contains specific provisions designed to make piracy a genuinely painful proposition. Sections 6AA and 6AB prohibit unauthorised recording and transmission of films, with violations attracting a minimum of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 3 lakh. At the upper end, offenders face three years behind bars and fines of up to 5 per cent of a film’s audited gross production cost — a figure that, for a big-budget production, could run into crores.
The legislation also gives the government powers to act against intermediaries hosting infringing content, by notifying them under Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and compelling takedowns and blocking actions. Under Section 79(3)(b), intermediaries are legally required to remove or disable access to unlawful content upon receiving government notice or court orders. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, add a further layer of obligation, requiring platforms to ensure their services are not used to host or distribute content that violates copyright or proprietary rights.
To put enforcement into practice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has established a dedicated institutional mechanism, complete with nodal officers to receive complaints. Copyright holders, authorised representatives or individuals can report piracy through a prescribed format, after which the government issues notices to intermediaries to disable access to infringing links.
The most headline-grabbing action came on 11 March 2026, when Telegram was formally notified under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and directed to remove and disable 3,142 channels found to be distributing unauthorised content belonging to OTT platforms, content owners and producers. The complaints that triggered the action came from OTT platforms including JioCinema and Amazon Prime Video, which alleged that copyrighted films, web series and other material were being shared on the platform on a massive scale. Telegram’s architecture, with its large file-sharing limits and capacity for user anonymity, has made it a favoured vehicle for exactly this kind of large-scale piracy.
The Telegram action sits within a broader pattern of escalating enforcement. Just days before the Lok Sabha statement, the ministry banned five OTT platforms for streaming obscene content: MoodXVIP, Koyal Playpro, Digi Movieplex, Feel and Jugnu. In July 2025, the Centre ordered the blocking of 25 OTT platforms accused of streaming obscene, vulgar or pornographic material, a list that included ALTT, ULLU, Big Shots App, Desiflix, Boomex, Navarasa Lite, Gulab App, Kangan App, Bull App, Jalva App, ShowHit, Wow Entertainment, Look Entertainment, Hitprime, Feneo, ShowX, Sol Talkies, Adda TV, HotX VIP, Hulchul App, MoodX, NeonX VIP, Fugi, Mojflix and Triflicks.
Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, provides the regulatory hook for those actions, prohibiting platforms from hosting content that is obscene, pornographic, invasive of privacy, gender-harassing, racially or ethnically objectionable, or that promotes hatred and violence.
For an industry that loses billions of rupees annually to piracy, the direction of travel is welcome. The question, as always, is not whether the laws exist, but whether the enforcement machinery can keep pace with the ingenuity of those determined to circumvent it. Three thousand channels down, and the pirates are already busy opening three thousand more.
