I&B Ministry
Number of TV channels reaches 882 – far from target, 10 entrants in past quarter
NEW DELHI: India now has a total of 882 functional private television channels (as on 31 May 2017) which is way short of the claim made last year that the country will have 1500 channels by the end of March this year.
The master list issued by the Government of 882 includes nine channels whose permission has been “cancelled by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry due to security denial by Home Ministry However stay order given by Court.” The list also names two channels MTV Beats HD (earlier STAY RAW) and the Bangla AATH (earlier Channel 8) which have changed names since the last list issued as on 28 February 2017.
While permission was accorded to a total of 1071 TV channels, the licences of 189 were cancelled. (This does not include the nine whose cases were stayed by Courts.)
Of the 882, 391 are news channels while 491 are general entertainment channels. Of these, 773 782 channels including 369 news channels are permitted to uplink from and downlink in India. Another 01 including sixteen news channels are uplinked from overseas and permitted to downlink into India.
In comparison, the country has only eighteen channels including six news channels which are uplinked from India but permitted to downlinked in other countries.
Interestingly, while the total number of operational channels has fallen by ten, a total of ten new channels have entered the field in the past three months till May-end.
The number of total channels had grown from 869 in February-end 2016 to 892 in February-end this year but has fallen by ten since then. In fact, the number had risen to 899 by the end of December 2016 when the total cancellations were 155. By January-end this year, the number had fallen to 889 of which twelve banned channels had received stay orders from Courts.
Channels permitted from March onwards include Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV, Tunes 6 Music owned by Movements Digital India Pvt. Ltd; Surya Samachar and Surya Sagar owned by Surya Sagar Surya Processed Food Pvt. Ltd; Sony Aath owned by Bangla Entertainment Pvt. Ltd; Cartoon Netwrok HD+ (earlier Cartoon Network HD) owned by Turner International India Pvt Ltd; Public Comedy owned by Writeman Media Pvt. Ltd; Zee Kannada HD and Zee Telugu HD owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited; and Euro News owned by Catvision Ltd.
The list of the channels permitted as on 31 May 2017 along with their area and language of operation and the names of owning companies has been placed on the ministry’s site.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information Technology which goes into issues relating to Information and Broadcasting had last year noted that the State Finance Commission while drafting its proposals for the 12th Plan (2012-17) had assumed that the number of permitted TV channels would rise to 1500.
Meanwhile, the Committee was told that the present set up of Electronic Media Monitoring Centre had developed logging and recording facility for 900 TV channels and is thus fully equipped to start monitoring of all permitted channels available on public domain.
The Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd. (BECIL) is configuring all available free to air channels in the content monitoring system of the EMMC.
I&B Ministry
Government sets up AI governance group to steer policy
AIGEG to align ministries, assess jobs impact, guide AI deployment.
MUMBAI: If artificial intelligence is the engine, the government is now building the dashboard and making sure everyone reads from the same screen. The Centre has constituted a new inter-ministerial body to coordinate India’s approach to AI, formalising a key recommendation from its governance framework and the Economic Survey. The AI Governance and Economic Group (AIGEG), set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, will act as the central platform to align AI-related policy across ministries, regulators and departments, an attempt to bring coherence to what has so far been a fragmented and fast-evolving landscape.
The group will be chaired by union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, with minister of state Jitin Prasada as vice chairperson. Its composition reflects both technological and economic priorities, bringing together the principal scientific adviser, the chief economic adviser, and the CEO of NITI Aayog, alongside key secretaries from telecommunications, economic affairs and science and technology. A representative from the National Security Council Secretariat is also part of the group, while the MeitY secretary will serve as member convenor.
At its core, AIGEG is designed to do two things: coordinate and anticipate. On the policy front, it will review existing regulatory mechanisms, issue guidance across sectors and ensure companies remain compliant with evolving legal frameworks. Beyond that, it will oversee national initiatives on AI governance, with a focus on enabling responsible innovation rather than merely regulating it.
The economic dimension is equally central. The group has been tasked with assessing how AI-driven automation could reshape jobs identifying which roles are most at risk, where those impacts may be geographically concentrated, and whether technology will augment or replace human labour. Based on these assessments, it will develop mitigation strategies and transition plans, signalling a more proactive stance on workforce disruption.
In parallel, AIGEG will work with industry stakeholders to chart a long-term roadmap for AI adoption, categorising use cases into “deploy”, “pilot” or “defer” buckets depending on readiness factors such as data availability, skill levels and regulatory clarity. The aim is to move from broad ambition to structured execution deciding not just what can be built, but what should be built now.
The group will function as the apex layer in India’s AI governance architecture, supported by a Technology and Policy Expert Committee that will track global developments, emerging risks and regulatory priorities. Together, the two bodies are expected to shape both the pace and direction of AI adoption in the country.
In a landscape where technology often outruns policy, the creation of AIGEG signals an attempt to close that gap ensuring that India’s AI journey is not just rapid, but also coordinated, accountable and economically grounded.
