I&B Ministry
FTII students expected to meet MIB MoS Rajyavardhan Rathore
NEW DELHI: A meeting of the student leaders of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) with Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Rajyavardhan Rathore will be convened in the near future, according to information given to students today.
The meeting is likely to be in Delhi, though no date has been fixed. Further discussions would depend on the outcome of this meeting, I&B sources told Indiantelevision.com.
I&B secretary Sunil Arora, in a brief second round of discussions with the students in Mumbai took their opinion on proposals to make FTII an institution of excellence.
The Ministry was represented by Joint Secretary (Films) Sanjay Murthy, Films Division director general Mukesh Sharma, FTII director Prashant Pathrabe and FTII eegistrar U C Bodke. The Students’ Association was represented by seven members and Aruna Raje Patil of GRAFTII.
In the earlier round of negotiations with the FTII student leaders on 7 October, the Mukesh Sharma Committee had been set up to look into the issues of operational flexibility and procurement of equipment for FTII.
MUMBAI: When the numbers go silent, the noise on screen gets a little harder to measure. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has extended the suspension of television rating data for news channels, directing Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to withhold TRPs for another four weeks. The latest order, issued on March 31, 2026, builds on an earlier directive from March 6 that had paused ratings for a month. The ministry has clarified that the blackout will continue for four weeks or until further instructions are issued whichever comes earlier keeping the industry in a prolonged state of data drought.
The reasoning, officials suggest, lies far beyond domestic screens. With geopolitical tensions in West Asia continuing to escalate, the government has flagged concerns over how such developments could influence news consumption and presentation. The move is aimed at curbing excessive sensationalism and speculative coverage during what it describes as a sensitive global moment.
For the broadcast ecosystem, the absence of Television Rating Points (TRPs) is more than symbolic, it removes the industry’s primary scorecard. Ratings dictate advertising flows, shape editorial strategies and fuel the competitive pecking order among news channels. Without them, broadcasters are effectively operating without a public performance benchmark.
The timing only adds to the complexity. Amid a high-intensity global news cycle, channels must now navigate audience engagement without the weekly feedback loop that typically drives programming decisions. Advertisers, too, are left recalibrating, leaning on proxies such as brand strength, reach and distribution instead of hard viewership data.
While framed as a temporary regulatory intervention tied to maintaining public order, the extended suspension underscores a broader unease about the tone and direction of news coverage. For now, the ratings race is on pause but the battle for attention continues, just without a scoreboard.
