I&B Ministry
I&B commissions new programmes for overhaul of North East channels
NEW DELHI: An amount of Rs 80 million and Rs 105 million, respectively, was allocated to Doordarshan Kendra (DDK) Guwahati and PPC (NE) Guwahati for commissioning of programmes in 2002-’03, information and broadcasting minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said.
As a reply to questions posed by BJP member Indramoni Bora in the Rajya Sabha, Prasad, said that 1,487 episodes were commissioned for DDK’s producers from the northeast and 1,379 episodes to PPC Guwahati.
Replying to another question on the northeast, Prasad said that the 24-hours Northeast Satellite Channel was started on 27 December 2000, with a view to extend coverage to the population in the hilly terrain.
According to Prasad, the required capital outlay of Rs 3,213.5 million, projected for the period 2001-’02 to 2004-’05, will be spent in four phases. A number of special programmes have been commissioned, which include those with development themes, cross border terrorism, militancy, magazine programme on events and achievements in the northeast and a fiction serial on an award-winning novel .
Prasad said that the northeast channel is also available outside the region through satellite. About Rs 1,421 million has been approved mainly to upgrade the programme service for the 24-hours satellite channel.
Meanwhile, the government has stated that a core group has been set up to consider amendments to the copyright act and different groups of the music industry have made their submissions with regard to retention/ deletion/ modification in Section 52 (1) (i) of the Copyright Act 1957.
Replying to a question by N P Durga in Rajya Sabha, Prasad said that the nodal ministry for the Copyright Act, 1957, is the ministry of human resource development. He added that in 1999, the Copyright Division started the exercise of amending the Copyright Act, mainly to bring it in consonance with WIPO Copyright Treaty 1996, and WIPO Performance and Phonogram Treaty, 1996, and the TRIPS Agreement.
Prasad said that there is no unanimous view of the entire music industry on Section 52 (1) of the Copyright Act.
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.
