I&B Ministry
Govt official tipped as interim CEO of Prasar Bharati
NEW DELHI: With the government yet to decide on a chief executive for pubcaster Prasar Bharati, an information and broadcasting ministry official is slated to take over the reins from the outgoing chief in the interim.
Additional secretary in the I&B ministry P Singh, a government representative on the board of Prasar Bharati, would be the interim chief of an organization that manages Doordarshan and All India Radio.
KS Sarma retires from the post of CEO on 30 June after an over four-year tenure, being the longest serving chief executive.Though it is unlikely that Singh would be a permanent appointee, the lack of urgency on the part of the I&B ministry to find a replacement for Sarma could see the government official at the helm of affairs for a longer duration than generally expected.
Some of the names doing the rounds in the corridors of power as likely candidates to succeed Sarma include former I&B ministry official Vijay Singh and a human resources development ministry official who’s said to be close to I&B minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.Another candidate, SY Querishi, whose name was being bandied round as a likely CEO of Prasar Bharati, was named by the government on Thursday to go to the Election Commission.
Querishi had served as the director general of Doordarshan during Sushma Swaraj’s tenure as I&B minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in the early 2000s.
Considering that the post of CEO of Prasar Bharati — still regarded as an extension of the government propaganda division despite autonomy granted to it some years back — would prove to be both sensitive and crucial for New Delhi with elections scheduled in some states next year, it’s unlikely that Dasmunsi and company will decide in a hurry on a successor to Sarma.
As the CEO, Sarma has had his ups and downs, but managed to retain his post despite changes in the ministry and the government.
I&B Ministry
India turns up the heat on piracy, orders Telegram to axe 3,142 channels and blocks 800 websites
New legal teeth, nodal officers and notices to intermediaries signal that the government is done playing nice with copyright thieves
NEW DELHI: India’s war on film piracy just got significantly more aggressive. The government has ordered Telegram to remove 3,142 channels distributing pirated content, blocked access to around 800 websites through internet service providers, and put the full weight of freshly sharpened legislation behind the crackdown. The message from New Delhi is unambiguous: the free ride for copyright thieves is over.
Minister of state for information and broadcasting L. Murugan spelled out the legal architecture to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023, he said, now contains specific provisions designed to make piracy a genuinely painful proposition. Sections 6AA and 6AB prohibit unauthorised recording and transmission of films, with violations attracting a minimum of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 3 lakh. At the upper end, offenders face three years behind bars and fines of up to 5 per cent of a film’s audited gross production cost — a figure that, for a big-budget production, could run into crores.
The legislation also gives the government powers to act against intermediaries hosting infringing content, by notifying them under Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and compelling takedowns and blocking actions. Under Section 79(3)(b), intermediaries are legally required to remove or disable access to unlawful content upon receiving government notice or court orders. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, add a further layer of obligation, requiring platforms to ensure their services are not used to host or distribute content that violates copyright or proprietary rights.
To put enforcement into practice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has established a dedicated institutional mechanism, complete with nodal officers to receive complaints. Copyright holders, authorised representatives or individuals can report piracy through a prescribed format, after which the government issues notices to intermediaries to disable access to infringing links.
The most headline-grabbing action came on 11 March 2026, when Telegram was formally notified under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and directed to remove and disable 3,142 channels found to be distributing unauthorised content belonging to OTT platforms, content owners and producers. The complaints that triggered the action came from OTT platforms including JioCinema and Amazon Prime Video, which alleged that copyrighted films, web series and other material were being shared on the platform on a massive scale. Telegram’s architecture, with its large file-sharing limits and capacity for user anonymity, has made it a favoured vehicle for exactly this kind of large-scale piracy.
The Telegram action sits within a broader pattern of escalating enforcement. Just days before the Lok Sabha statement, the ministry banned five OTT platforms for streaming obscene content: MoodXVIP, Koyal Playpro, Digi Movieplex, Feel and Jugnu. In July 2025, the Centre ordered the blocking of 25 OTT platforms accused of streaming obscene, vulgar or pornographic material, a list that included ALTT, ULLU, Big Shots App, Desiflix, Boomex, Navarasa Lite, Gulab App, Kangan App, Bull App, Jalva App, ShowHit, Wow Entertainment, Look Entertainment, Hitprime, Feneo, ShowX, Sol Talkies, Adda TV, HotX VIP, Hulchul App, MoodX, NeonX VIP, Fugi, Mojflix and Triflicks.
Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, provides the regulatory hook for those actions, prohibiting platforms from hosting content that is obscene, pornographic, invasive of privacy, gender-harassing, racially or ethnically objectionable, or that promotes hatred and violence.
For an industry that loses billions of rupees annually to piracy, the direction of travel is welcome. The question, as always, is not whether the laws exist, but whether the enforcement machinery can keep pace with the ingenuity of those determined to circumvent it. Three thousand channels down, and the pirates are already busy opening three thousand more.
