I&B Ministry
Amit Khare to start his second tenure as I&B secretary
MUMBAI: He’s back at a post he held just about two years back. Amit Khare, the higher education secretary in the HRD ministry and schools, has been hoicked into the position of secretary, ministry of information & broadcasting (I&B). He replaces Ravi Mittal who has been in the hotseat since December 2019.
Khare had been appointed to the secretary’s post for the first time on 31 May 2018. It was in December last year, that Mittal got the top charge of MIB during a reshuffle. Now, Mittal has been transferred as secretary, department of sports.
Khare is a 1985 batch Indian Administrative Service officer .Considered an upright civil servant, he is credited for unearthing the multi-million dollar fodder scam two decades ago in Bihar for which some powerful politicians, including former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav, and senior officials have been handed jail sentences of varied time periods.
Khare comes into the I&B ministry at a crucial time when the government is battling hard to stem the spread of the dreaded novel coronavirus SARS-COV2 which has already claimed more than 800 lives and afflicted more than 26,000 Indians. Khare will have an important role to play especially considering that the economic trials and tribulations the TV broadcasting, and advertising and media sectors are facing courtesy the government enforced lockdown nationally for the past month or so. Khare has been relieved of his secretary schools portfolo, while continuing to hold the higher education one.
During a career span of more than 35 years, Khare has held various field postings and has worked from grassroots to the higher levels of governance in both state and central governments. Prior to being additional chief secretary, Jharkhand, Khare served as principal secretary, finance & planning department, Jharkhand. He has served as member secretary in the department of pharmaceuticals, ministry of chemicals & fertilizers, and joint secretary to the in the department of higher education, ministry of human resource development.
I&B Ministry
Prasar Bharati sets EPG standards for DD Free Dish platform
New specs define 7-day guide, LCN mapping, and device compatibility.
MUMBAI: Your TV guide just got a backstage pass structured, scheduled, and far more in sync. Prasar Bharati has released detailed technical specifications for Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) services on DD Free Dish, laying down a standardised framework for how channels and programme information are organised and delivered. At the core of the update is a defined EPG data structure, covering genre-based categorisation, scheduling formats, and Logical Channel Numbering (LCN). The aim is simple: make navigation less guesswork and more guided experience across the platform’s over 40 million households.
The specifications also introduce a seven-day programme guide window for each channel, alongside clear rules for channel grouping and LCN mapping effectively deciding not just what you watch, but how easily you find it.
On the technical front, the document outlines requirements for Program Specific Information (PSI) and Service Information (SI), including descriptor usage across tables such as PAT, BAT and NIT. It further details service lists and network linkage parameters, giving OEMs and developers a clearer blueprint for integration.
Importantly, the framework is designed to work seamlessly with television sets equipped with in-built satellite tuners, enabling users to access DD Free Dish directly without additional hardware, an incremental but meaningful step towards simplifying access.
The platform will continue to operate on GSAT-15 transponders, using MPEG-4 compression and DVB-S2 transmission standards, ensuring continuity even as the interface evolves.
While largely technical, the move signals a broader push towards standardisation and user-friendly discovery in India’s free-to-air ecosystem because sometimes, the real upgrade isn’t what’s on screen, but how easily you get there.
