I&B Ministry
Report illegal TV channels, Govt alerted
NEW DELHI: While stressing that the law was clear that no cable operator could beam any private TV channel which had not been registered with the Government, the minister of state for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said today that a total of 889 private satellite channels had been given valid permission under Uplinking/ Downlinking Guidelines as on 31 January 2017.
Rathore told the Parliament that Sub Rule 6(6) of the Cable Television Network Rules 1994 specifies that no cable operator shall carry or include in his cable service any television broadcast or channel which has not been registered by the Central Government for being viewed within the territory of India.
The Ministry has from time to time issued advisories to State Governments to constitute State and District Level Monitoring Committees for broadcast content monitoring.
The Ministry on 8 July 2016 issued an advisory to the Chief Secretaries of all States/UTs Governments, the District Collectors and the Multi System Operators (MSOs)/ Local Cable Operators (LCOs) to ensure that no unpermitted TV channel, are transmitted/ re-transmitted in the Cable Networks and to take action against the defaulter under the provisions of the Cable Television Networks Act 1995 to stop transmission of these channels.
In pursuance to this, necessary action had been taken by authorized officers and FIR lodged against the concerned LCO.
In mid-2016, the Ministry had also written to the Home Ministry to bring to its notice any illegal channels being beamed in the country.
However, the I and B Ministry had last month put on its website a list of 899 as at the end of 2016, with nine new television channels cleared in December 2016.
According to that list, permission had been initially granted to 1054 channels but later the licences of 155 channels had been cancelled. The 899 channels included 500 general entertainment channels and 399 news and current affairs channels.
Of these, while 788 were allowed to uplink and downlink in India, 20 were permitted to uplink from India but not downlink in the country and 91 channels uplinked from overseas were permitted downlinking into India.
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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.
