I&B Ministry
I&B’s proposal for community radio expansion referred to GoM
NEW DELHI: In yet another move highlighting the inadequacy of the information and broadcasting ministry to push through changes in media legislation, the Union Cabinet today referred to a group of ministers (GoM) its proposals for expansion of community radio in the country.
This is the third proposal of the I&B ministry, apart from the uplink and downlink policies, which has been referred to a GoM for wider discussions.
“The Cabinet today considered and referred the scheme for the second phase community radio to a GoM. This GoM will be different from the one on downlinking policies,” information and broadcasting minister Jaipal Reddy told reporters here today.
He said the first phase of community radio, which was started in 2002, has not taken off and remained confined to colleges and deemed universities for a variety of reasons.
In the new scheme, the I&B ministry has proposed that community radio should be allowed to generate revenue with five minutes of commercials in an hour of programming. The scheme should also be opened for non-profit organisations and civil society organisations, he said.
Presently, the government allows only educational institutions to set up community radio.
“It was also proposed that the range of the community radio be
increased from 5-10 km at present to 10-15 km so that it is beneficial to a greater number of people,” Reddy said, adding the range cannot be increased further as it could then clash with FM radio.
Indiantelevision.com learns that allowing advertisements on community radio services is one of the contentious issues raised by the finance ministry. The contention: if the community radio service provider is not paying any fee for starting the service, unlike FM radio operators who have to dish out a licence fee, the rationale for allowing them to earn ad revenue needs to be examined.
Apart from this, the usual suspicion of national-security-could-get-compromised has been raised too.
The community radio GoM, which is likely to have Reddy, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, among others as members, would also discuss security issues concerning the scheme, the I&B minister admitted.
The broadcast regulator has recommended that licences for operating community radio up to a maximum of 50 watt transmitter power should be granted for a period of three years with the licencees furnishing a bank guarantee of only
Rs 50,000, since community radio broadcasting has to operate on non-commercial basis.
Meanwhile, replying to a question on the uplink and downlink policies, Reddy said that another GoM had submitted its report to the ministry, which will be now studied by his ministry before being taken again to the Cabinet.
Reddy did not give any time frame for this to happen, saying it should happen “very soon.”
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.
