I&B Ministry
Reddy okays FII investments in news channels
MUMBAI: Information & broadcasting minister Jaipal Reddy today signed a note allowing foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to invest in television news channels.
The note prepared by the I&B ministry puts the total cap on foreign holdings (FII and foreign direct investments) at 26 per cent. The development validates a report first put out by indiantelevision.com on 22 September under the headline “Govt may allow FII inflows in news channels.”
The I&B ministry is likely to seek cabinet approval for the proposal before October-end. It may be recalled that the government had made it clear that FIIs would not be allowed to invest in news channels in the aftermath of the Star News case. News channels were given till 31 October to meet the government’s uplinking conditions.Market analysts see the I&B’s move to allow FII investments in news channels as having a positive but limited influence on media stocks. The big gainers, of course, are TV Today Network and NDTV, as they currently have hardly any FII holdings.
“FIIs had shown keen interest to invest in TV Today and NDTV in the past, but were not permitted. Aaj Tak and the two NDTV channels are performing well. The stock price will see a boost,” says an analyst in a leading foreign institutional firm.TV18, on the other hand, may not gain substantially with the permission to allow FII investments, a market analyst says. The company has 15.39 per cent FII holding.
What is not clear at this point is whether the easing of foreign investment norms will help clear a regulatory logjam that business news channel CNBC-TV18 has been confronting since late last year that over CNBC’s attempt to increase its holding.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) had in December last year turned down a proposal from Television Eighteen Ltd. to offload 15 per cent equity stake in its uplinking subsidiary to CNBC Asia. The FIPB did this on the recommendation of the I&B ministry.
Television Eighteen’s uplinking subsidiary that uplinks the CNBC-TV18 channel from India is iNews.com. CNBC Asia holds a 10 per cent stake in iNews.com.
A question mark remains however, over the Zee Group’s Hindi news channel. Zee Telefilms already has an FII holding of 36.75 per cent. The company has already applied for the restructuring of its Zee News channel and is awaiting clearance. “Zee Telefilms can’t hold the news channel as it has a substantial foreign holding,” says an analyst.
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.
