News Broadcasting
Kerala bans all lotteries in State
BANGALORE: Describing lotteries as a social evil, Kerala – one of the pioneers of government run lotteries in India, has decided to ban all lotteries in the state, including its own state run paper lottery.
In a bid to prevent the return of online lotteries and lotteries of other states which were garnering a major chunk of income from the lottery business in Kerala, the state cabinet on 25 January issued a blanket ban on all lotteries.
Lotteries in the country are governed by the Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 (Act No 17 of 1998). As per Section 6 of the Act: The Central Government, may by order published in the Official Gazette, prohibit lottery organized, conducted or promoted in contravention of the provisions of Section 4, or where tickets of such lottery are sold in contravention of the provisions of Section 5. As per various orders of the Supreme Court, lotteries cannot be banned selectively.
Earlier too, the Kerala Government on 8 November 2003, attempted to prevent the sale of other State lotteries, but this was stayed by the Kerala High Court on 19 December and subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court, in its interim order.
In the present situation, when the government recently banned on-line lotteries again, the concerned affected parties; namely the Government of Meghalaya and online lottery players approached the Supreme Court. The apex court’s verdict on Monday (24 January) underlined two options to the state governement – either to allow all lotteries or to ban the entire trade in the state.
This ban, directly or indirectly, will affect around 200,000 people including about 30,000 handicapped persons who will loose their income and livelihood earned by the sale of lottery tickets. The state exchequer will also be poorer by around Rs 200-300 million every year. The gazetted and non-gazetted officers of the state lotteries department would be deployed to other government departments, while alternative rehabilitation plans for people, directly affected by the ban, especially the handicapped, are being mooted by the government according to the state chief minister Oommen Chandy.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
