I&B Ministry
Court ruling on political ads may be contested
NEW DELHI: The Indian government is contemplating contensting the Andhra Pradesh high court order quashing a ban on political advertisements on the electronic medium. Reason: to douse the fire that has engulfed not only Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, but also Prime Minister Atal B. Vajpayee.
According to political sources in the Capital, the govermnent is mulling, as one of the options, to go in for a Special Leave Petition (SLP) petitoning the Supreme Court to look into the issue of politcal advertisments, surrogate or otherwise, on television channels.
A The sources said that a high-level meeting in this regard was held at the Prime Ministers residence yesterday where this matter was debated.
It is also learnt that Vajpayee, while expressing his unhappiness at being target of a surrogate advertisment questioning his antecendents during the pre-Independence days, would want the issue to be buried. An ideal scenario would be to have the Supreme Court stay the order of the Andhra high court, which removes the ban on political ads to be carried o TV channels under the Cable TV Network (Regulation) Act.
Amongst the several options discussed, the most plausible looked like the one where the government or an organisation contested the Andhra HC order.
Those who attended the meeting with the PM included his advisor Brajesh Misra, information and broadcasting minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Solicitor-General Soli Sorabjee and Bharatiya Janata Party president Venkaiah Naidu.
On 23 March, the Andhra HC, based on a petition filed by Gemini Television Network, ETV and Maa TV which challenged rule 7 (3) of the Act invoked by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Election Commission to ban telecast of political advertisements, quashed the ban.
The court also observed that the ban order amounted to discrimination between the two media (print and electronic) and was also violative of the right to freedom of trade and business.
Since the order was passed, the issue has snowballed into a controversy with the Election Commissiona nd the government lobbing the ball into each others court.
The issue of surrogate political advertisements is echoing not in the Election Commission or on TV channels, but somewhere else. The reverberations of personal attacks can be heard in the Prime Ministers residence. Apparently, according to political sources, PM Atal B Vajpayee is very upset that an ad allegedly showing him in bad light did a round of TV channels before broadcasters decided to take all such ads off air.
Stung by a surrogate ad put out by a Bharatiya Janata Party front organization questioning party chief Sonia Gandhis foreign origin, a seemingly front organization of the Congress hit back by issuing an ad that dwelt on Vajpayees antecedents and that he was allegedly involved as an informant for the British during the pre-Independence days of India.
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.
