Hardware
Dilli One gets government nod for uplink
MUMBAI: The Ramesh Sharma-promoted Moving Picture Company India Ltd (MPCL) has received approval for uplinking its Delhi centric channel from the ministry of information & broadcasting.
Promoter Ramesh Sharma confirmed the development today, but said, “This would be a wrong time to start a channel and we would like to wait for a `trigger’ to happen in the TV industry, which we feel should come through with Star’s proposed channel.”
The company has finalised Dilli One as the name of the channel, which would target the audience in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The channel would have a mix of Hindi and Punjabi language programming.
MPCL is a boutique company, which produces programmes such as Current Bollywood on Max and Popkorn on Zoom, the glamour and lifestyle TV channel owned by Bennett Coleman group, publishers of Times of India.
Pointing out that the uplinking permission could have come through earlier, Sharma said that the company is now targeting a festive season launch for Dilli One. This means it is unlikely to see the light of the day before the last quarter of 2005.
Dilli One would be positioned as an interactive infotainment channel. “Though we would be having a certain percentage of news & current affairs based programming, it would be wrong to say that the channel would be a news channel,” Sharma added.
MPCL’s studio and post-production facility is based in Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi, from where the digital free to air channel will be uplinked to Thaicom-3.
Sharma said now that the government has given the green light, the task of setting up a team for Dilli One will commence.
At present, Delhi’s NCR is being catered by Total TV, started by a businessman close to Haryana politicians. Another channel in the pipeline is one that would come from the Sahara stable and is going under the project name of D1.
Meanwhile, MPCL is scouting around for a strategic partner to invest in the company, the financial details of which where not forthcoming.
Hardware
India clears Rs 1.6 lakh crore semiconductor projects under Semicon India
Ten projects cleared as production begins and design ecosystem gathers pace
NEW DELHI: India’s push to become a global electronics powerhouse is gaining momentum, with the Semicon India Programme driving the creation of a full-fledged semiconductor ecosystem from design to manufacturing.
Launched in 2022, the programme aims to build capabilities across the entire value chain, including chip design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging. In just four years, the government has approved 10 semiconductor projects with a combined investment commitment of around Rs 1.6 lakh crore.
Two of these facilities have already begun commercial production, including units led by Micron Technology Inc. and Kaynes Technology India Limited. Two more plants are expected to go live later this year, signalling that India’s chip ambitions are moving from blueprint to factory floor.
The broader electronics manufacturing story has also seen sharp growth over the past decade. Production has jumped from roughly Rs 1.9 lakh crore in 2014-15 to about Rs 12 lakh crore in 2024-25, while exports have surged nearly eightfold. Mobile phone manufacturing, once heavily import-dependent, now meets almost all domestic demand and has become a major export driver.
Alongside manufacturing, the government is investing heavily in design capabilities. Through access to advanced chip design tools provided free to 315 universities, students and researchers have clocked over 200 lakh hours of usage. This effort has already resulted in 211 chip tape-outs from 75 institutions.
Support for startups is also picking up pace. Twenty-four chip design projects have been approved, targeting sectors such as surveillance, energy, communications and IoT. Of these, 14 companies have collectively raised over Rs 650 crore in venture funding, while several designs have progressed to fabrication, including at advanced nodes.
To strengthen supply chains, India has also signed semiconductor cooperation agreements with countries including the United States, Japan, the European Union, Singapore and the Netherlands. These partnerships aim to reduce global dependencies while boosting domestic capabilities.
The employment impact is equally significant. The electronics sector now supports an estimated 25 lakh jobs, with mobile manufacturing alone accounting for nearly half. As more semiconductor units come online under the India Semiconductor Mission, indirect job creation across supply chains is expected to rise further.
Sharing these updates in Parliament, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology minister of state Jitin Prasada underscored the government’s focus on building a resilient, end-to-end semiconductor ecosystem.
With factories taking shape, designs moving to silicon and investments flowing in, India’s semiconductor story is steadily shifting gears from ambition to execution.
