MAM
Supreme Court sets panel on government advertisements
NEW DELHI: Pursuant to the Supreme Court order for forming panel to frame guidelines to regulate publicly funded government advertisements, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has formally notified the names of Bangalore’s National Law University director Prof NR Madhav Menon, former Lok Sabha secretary general T K Vishwanathan and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar.
I&B Ministry secretary Bimal Julka will be the member secretary of the committee, which held its first meeting on 5 May.
The Ministry said the report will be given preferably within three months of the date of the judgment, 23 April, by the panel after an intricate study of all the best practices in public advertisements in different jurisdictions.
The apex court bench headed by chief justice P Sathasivam with justice Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana had said that the existing guidelines of the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) do not cover such advertisements. There was therefore a need for substantive guidelines to be issued by the Court until the legislature enacts a law in this regard.
The court passed the order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the NGOs Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) pleading it to frame guidelines. The petition sought issuance of guidelines for curbing ruling parties from taking political mileage by projecting their leaders in official advertisements.
It was, the Court said, ‘vividly clear’ that the DAVP guidelines, which are available in the public domain, only deal with the eligibility and empanelment of the newspapers/journals or other media, their rates of payment, and such like matters. Besides, it only specifies that in releasing advertisement to newspapers/journals, the DAVP would not take into account the political affiliation or editorial policies of newspapers/journals.
“Hence, it is evident that there is no policy or guideline to regulate the content of government advertisements and to exclude the possibility of any mala fide use or misuse of public funds on advertisements in order to gain political mileage by the political establishment.”
The Government in its counter affidavit claimed that 60 per cent of the advertisements released by the DAVP on behalf of various Ministries/Departments/Public Sector Undertakings of the Central Government relate to classified or display/classified category such as UPSC/SSC or recruitment, tender and public notices, etc. The respondents asserted that government advertisements sometime carry messages from national leaders, ministers and dignitaries accompanied with their photographs.
However, government counsel K Radhakrishnan said the purpose of such advertisements is not to give personal publicity to the leaders or to the political parties they belong to rather the objective is to let the people know and have authentic information about the progress of the programmes/performance of the government they elected and form informed opinions, which is one of the fundamental rights of the citizens in our democracy as enshrined in the Constitution.
The apex court noted in its judgment that the immediate cause of filing these writ petitions in 2003 and 2004 respectively was stated to be the numerous full page advertisements in the print media and repeated advertisements in the electronic media by the Central Government, State Governments and its agencies, instrumentalities including public sector undertakings which project political personalities and proclaim the achievements of particular political governments and parties at the expense of the public exchequer.
It was also the assertion of the petitioners – Common Cause represented by Meera Bhatia and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan – that such advertisements become more blatant and assumes alarming proportions just before the announcement of the general elections. Accordingly, it was the stand of the petitioners that such deliberate misuse of public funds by the Central Government, State Governments, their departments and instrumentalities of the state is destructive to the rule of law.
It was also alleged that it allows the parties in power to patronize publications and media organizations affiliated to the parties in power and also to get favourable media coverage by selective dispersal of the advertising bonanza. It was projected that the use of public funds for advertising by public authorities to project particular personalities, parties or governments without any attendant public interest is mala fide and arbitrary and amounted to violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. It was also argued that use and wastage of public funds in political motivated advertisements designed to project particular personality, party or government by wasting public money is also in violation of the fundamental rights under Article 21 because of diversion of resources by the governments for partisan interests. Such violation, therefore, attracts the remedy under Article 32 for the enforcement of fundamental rights of the citizens.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
