I&B Ministry
Radio City starts offering locally relevant content at metro stations
MUMBAI: Giving a new dimension to travel entertainment, Radio City 91.1 FM, a leading radio network, has partnered with LMRC (Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation) to offer specialised content across all stations.
The service, inaugurated by the home minister Rajnath Singh and the UP chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath, the Lucknow Metro will make commute trendier.
Radio City has partnered with LMRC to create customised content packages during peak and off-peak hours respectively which comprises songs, jingles and a special trivia from ‘City ke Kone Kone Se’ to integrate Radio City’s ideology of ‘Rag Rag Mein Daude City’.
A TOH jingle has been specially composed and produced in house for Radio City LMRC that will be integrated on an hourly basis. In tandem with Radio City’s terrestrial music strategy of offering mood-mapped music, the playlist will be topical and in sync with the city’s listener’s preferences. An all-encompassing capsule, the content created will be a healthy mix of local happenings and music, refreshed every fortnight.
Radio City 91.1FM CEO Abraham Thomas said, “Radio City has been a pioneer in launching path breaking initiatives and Radio City LMRC is a testimony that reflects our leadership stance.”
Radio City surprised Lucknowites with a special message from actor and singer Farhan Akhtar on air during their first metro ride in the city.
Akhtar said, “Music and travel go hand in hand I believe every metro rider will enjoy the interim journey to the fullest.”
To kick off proceedings, Radio City installed a studio set-up at Char Bagh metro station where Radio City RJs will broadcast their shows live. In addition to this, Radio City has also created selfie zones across all eight metro stations where commuters can click and post it on their social media pages tagging Radio City and stand a chance to win a free monthly pass of Lucknow Metro.
This partnership further amplifies Radio City’s brand philosophy of “Rag Rag Mein Daude City” by providing locally relevant content.
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.
