Reminiscent India Television is to host the second annual Lashkara Punjabi Music Awards 2002 in June.
The awards to be held in Jalandhar, would acknowledge the talent and contribution of artistes and professionals in the field of Punjabi music in 11 different categories including Best Male and Female Vocalists.

The awards instituted by RITV in 2001, have three unique categories namely, The Lashkara Life Time Achievement Award, The Lashkara Honorary Award for Ragis, and The Lashkara Special Award to honour an eminent personality for contribution to Punjabi literature, culture and tradition. This year, these awards will also be presented at the presentation ceremony on 12 June.

Various dignitaries from Punjab, celebrities from the film and music industry are expected to attend the function, according to an official release. The jury for the awards includes singers Mahendra Kapoor and Abhijeet Bhattacharya, video director Ken Ghosh, music director Kuldip Singh, veteran lyricist Gulshan Bawra and choreographer Ganesh Hegde.

Awards will be given away for best male vocalist, best female vocalist, best video album, best video director, best music director, best music director, best choreographer, best songwriter (lyricist), best male debutante, best female debutante, best folk singer and the best sufi singer.

The Consumer Guidance Society of India has recommended that the government should first ensure that CAS addresses the critical issue of dismantling the on ground cable monopolies and that choice of selecting the channels rests with consumers, before implementing the system.
According to CGSI chairman Anand Patwardhan, the Cable Networks Regulation Amendment Bill 2002, to be tabled in Parliament tomorrow, offers no protection to consumers against monopolistic cable ops, nor does it seek to redress the grievances of consumers. Patwardhan points out that while the choice of free to air channels to be part of the basic service will now rest with the government while the choice of which pay channels to be offered to consumers will rest with cable ops. While the burden of buying the set top boxes will have to be borne by the viewers, the consumers will also have to pay a higher monthly fee monthly fee for receiving the pay channels, he feels.

"The consumer will have no recourse if a particular pay channel that a consumer wants to see and is ready to pay for is not made available by the cable op. Neither will the consumer have a choice to see the FTA channel of his choice," says Patwardhan. He also terms as discriminatory the bill‘s proposal to "legalise" consumers being charged differently in different areas of the same city, he observes.

A day before the amendments to the Cable TV Networks Regulations Act, 1995, is slated to be introduced in Parliament, information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj lashed out at the broadcasters saying "their pressure tactics would not work with her as CAS is in the interest of cable viewing consumers."
In a meeting with some 25-odd cable operators from various parts of the country, Swaraj said that the government is determined to see the amendments to the Act concerned passed before 17 May when Parliament takes a break.

The minister is reported to have told the delegation of cable operators that "talks of referring the amendments to the Act relating to the CAS to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT and Telecom are all delaying tactics which would not work."

According to Vicky Chowdhry,a Delhi cable operator who attended the meeting: "The minister was sympathetic towards the problems of the cable operators and exhorted the broadcasters not to further raise the subscription fee of the pay channels in the interim till the time CAS is implemented as it will be unfair for the consumer."

Another cable operator who attended the meeting said that Swaraj also assured them that a separate notification regarding CAS would be issued for the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh after consultations with the chief ministers concerned if the cable operators thought CAS would benefit the consumer.

The government is initially thinking of implementing the CAS in the four metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai.