I&B Ministry
I&B Ministry-bashing unwarranted, says NDTV’s Narayan Rao
MUMBAI: For the past one and a half years, India has been undergoing stomach churning change in the television industry thanks to the government mandated rollout of digitisation. With the due date to complete digitisation nationwide getting closer (31 December), much needs to be done. Now, with a new government in place and new Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Prakash Javadekar assuring the industry that digitisation will be implemented, expectations are only rising.
The recent CII meeting that took place with Javadekar saw industry stalwarts express their woes and wish-lists to the minister. They also expressed their displeasure at the inefficiency of the I&B bureaucracy.
I&B joint secretary of broadcasting Supriya Sahu and I&B secretary Bimal Julka were targets of accusations of delays in clearances and permissions.
Some other industry leaders – while appreciating the fact that the I&B Ministry pushed through DAS, whereas CAS in 2006-2007 just fell through – have lambasted even the TRAI – along with the I&B Ministry – at industry gatherings over the past six months for not moving fast and determinedly enough on many issues that have impacted their businesses.
NDTV vice chairperson and News Broadcasters Association president KVL Narayan Rao thinks that industry needs to keep a cool head and not resort to bureaucracy bashing. Narayan Rao has nearly 30 years work experience; half of that was spent in the bureaucracy with the Indian Revenue Service (1979-1994); the other half has been with the news network NDTV.
Says he: “I think the attack on the bureaucracy, particularly that on the I&B Ministry, was quite unfair. We currently have some highly efficient officials at the I&B Ministry who have shown a lot of understanding of our issues and have tried to do all they can to solve them. Supriya Sahu and Bimal Julka come immediately to mind.”
At the CASBAA India 2014 conference in New Delhi earlier this year, Sahu made a detailed presentation on the progress and benefits of digitisation stating that only 10 broadcasters had shared data with the Ministry. She appealed to other broadcasters to share revenue data with them so that the government could ascertain whether the digitisation dividend was really coming the way of industry.
If one harks back to 2012 almost everyone was cynical that the government mandated digital addressable system (DAS) rollout would ever become a reality. Almost everyone scoffed at even the suggestion. But it was a determined ministerial secretariat led by the then secretary Uday Kumar Varma and his team which consisted of Supriya Sahu and her directors Reijemon who pushed it through – along with the TRAI. Julka who replaced Varma has been following the same narrow strait.
Hence Rao feels that constant hurling of barbs at ministry officials is unpalatable. Says he: “Please remember that this is virtually the same lot of officials who ensured the implementation of the first two phases of digitisation which isn’t an easy task at all, who also issued the notification on ratings agencies, a long pending demand of the industry, and issued over 400 permissions for channels and who have allowed self/independent regulation to prevail. Yes there have been delays now and then but how much of that can be attributed to the bureaucrats is debatable.”
Indeed, several initiatives were taken by the I&B mandarins. Officials regularly met (at one time it was almost weekly) with industry executives – whether from broadcasting, MSOs, or LCOs – to asses digitisation’s progress. The security clearance check that directors of various channels were subject to – which pained many a broadcaster – came at the behest of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
When a large grouping from the broadcasting industry rose against the only TV ratings agency TAM, it was the I&B Ministry that took note of it and came up with policy guidelines for TV viewership monitoring. It was the Ministry which also pushed the institution of Broadcasting Audience Research Council, which the industry had kept in cold storage for almost half a decade.
After the Saradha chit fund scam, the Ministry quickly stepped in and did a check of the shareholding pattern of various channels to prevent repeats of a similar nature.
When TRAI came out with the 10+2 ad cap regulation, the Ministry supported the broadcasters’ view in keeping it at bay till digitisation pans out, though nothing concrete has come out of it as yet.
Additionally, while the Ministry did use the stick, it also doled out carrots by extending DAS deadlines on more than a few occasions – keeping in mind the realities on the ground – to give it a reasonable chance at success. Despite the long rope extended by both TRAI and the I&B Ministry, industry at the cable TV and MSO level has yet to begun physical billing for DAS subscribers even in some phase I cities. Forget about phase II.
Says a media observer: “Agreed for the last three or four months of the UPA regime the Ministry’s focus was on the election; industry issues were not a high priority. It was not a fault of the civil servants alone; the Ministry itself and the government on the whole could not move, thanks to the losses in the New Delhi state elections, and the stigma of corruption which kept hitting the Congress I in its face. I can understand some sections of the industry getting edgy, nervous and agitated for many a broadcaster’s, DTH operator’s business plans are linked to digitisation’s success and the fact that bureaucrats and ministries don’t throw a spanner in the works.”
She adds: “But we have to remember we have a new government led by Narendra Kumar Modi who has a lot more freedom than the previous regime. There’s a lot of positivity around, even though there are economic challenges on hand. The industry should look ahead, and not back. Things can only get better, and with experienced officials in the Ministry at helm, it will be easier to push through things. New ones could end up taking longer as they will have to come to grips with the sector – and that takes time.”
That’s a piece of advice which the irate members of the industry can ponder upon.
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.
