NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati has won a Full Member?s seat at the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) Administrative Council after eight years.

The Administrative Council consists of 14 Full and Additional Full members, who are elected by the members of the annual General Assembly for a three-year term. Previous CEOs of Prasar Bharati had been Vice Presidents until former CEO B S Lalli refused to take the term as VP in Tokyo two years ago.

India?s name was proposed by Japan?s public service broadcaster (NHK).

"It is unfortunate that India did not even bid for a single seat last year, when the ABU General Assembly was held in Delhi, as the host country usually has a claim on the Administrative Council seat," the pubcaster said in a statement here.

The ABU, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2014, has more than 220 member broadcasters large from the region?s 58 countries ranging from Turkey in the west to Samoa in the east and from Russia in the north to New Zealand in the south.

The ABU runs a daily Asiavision satellite TV news exchange, involving co-production and programme exchanges and technical, programming, legal and management consultancy services, as well as international frequency planning and coordination. It also negotiates rights for major sports events, organises coverage for the region, and provides rights-free content acquisition for developing countries.

The organisation promotes the collective interests of television and radio broadcasters and encourages regional and international co-operation between broadcasters. The ABU Secretariat is located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and is headed by a Secretary-General appointed by the General Assembly.

"The membership is another cap in the feather of the Prasar Bharati. Considering the competition from a number of countries, the unanimous support for Prasar Bharati was a major achievement. The membership gives India a direct say in matters as crucial as policy issues affecting broadcasters, negotiation of telecasting rights for major sporting events and ability to put across its point of view on the global flow of information," according to Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar, who led a team of officers from various departments of Doordarshan and AIR to Seoul, South Korea, for the ABU General Assembly.

The Prasar Bharati team, which was camping in Seoul from 10th October, worked overtime to seek support from prominent members including founding member Japan?s NHK, South Korea?s KBS and Malaysia?s RTM. The Prasar Bharati Secretariat worked in the background, sending emails to all the members of the General Assembly.

Elaborating on the strategy adopted for the vital election to the 14-member Council, Sircar said, "We were able to persuade Pakistan to step down in our favour and Japan?s public service broadcaster (NHK) which is also a major financial contributor, to propose our name. Our team personally met with members of dozens of national public service broadcasters to present India?s claim for candidature. After seeing such a huge support for India, other candidates withdrew their candidature and we were elected unanimously".

NEW DELHI: The report of the Central Vigilance Commission on former Prasar Bharati CEO B S Lalli should be made public before 29 February, the Central Information Commission has said in a direction to the government.

The report which gave details of alleged irregularities in awarding telecast rights and financial mismanagement among others has never been disclosed by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry saying the disclosure would impede the process of investigation.

However, the Ministry had in November 2010 disclosed the five out of seven alleged financial and administrative irregularities of which Lalli had been accused. The CVC had probed the matter on the directive of the Delhi High Court in 2009.

The five allegations established by CVC relate to contracts for management of advertisement revenue arising from the telecast of cricket matches on Doordarshan during 2007; the non-telecast by Doordarshan of T-20 cricket World Cup matches held in South Africa in September 2007; engagement of legal entities to represent Prasar Bharati; purchase of Radio Broadcasting Rights for 13 cricket series held during 2007-09; and hiring of transport and accommodation for the conduct of the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune in 2008.

The directive by the CIC relates to an RTI applicant Aseem Takyar who had sought to know from the Ministry the reports of CVC and Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) against Lalli. The Ministry had said, "information sought vide your application relates to the matter which is under investigation and furnishing of information would impede the process of investigation and hence the information was denied under Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act".

The section allows withholding of information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders by a government department.

Rejecting the arguments of the Ministry, Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said, "The Respondent (Ministry) has not given any justification or reasoning how disclosing the information would impede the process of investigation."

"Denial of a citizen?s fundamental right must be justified and the mere act of continuing an investigation cannot be used to deny citizens? rights. In view of this, the Commission does not accept the denial of information under Section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act," Gandhi said.