MUMBAI: The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court challenging the decision of the Indian Olympic Association?s special committee to recognise Hockey India as the national governing body for the game.

Justice Rajiv Shakdher sought responses from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, IOA, HI and International Hockey Federation on the IHF?s plea within two weeks and fixed the matter for hearing on 18 October. The court has said that the status quo, prevailing before Hockey India was declared as central body for hockey in the country, be maintained.

The impugned order passed by the IOA is clearly premeditated having already formed an opinion regarding the endorsement to be made in favour of the HI as regards the sole governing body in India, IHF said.

The impugned order passed is blatantly illegal and without jurisdiction because the Special Committee was formed by the IOA at the asking of the Respondent (International Hockey Federation) to decide the central authority governing the sport of hockey in India, the IHF said in its plea.

NEW DELHI: All applications for operating television channels or teleports have been given only 30 days from 25 May to furnish performance bank guarantee (PBG) and the permission fee as applicable.

An additional 15 days could be given only under exceptional circumstances, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has said.

It has clarified that no extension or correspondence will be entertained thereafter and those who fail to submit the PBG would not be given permission by the Ministry.

Earlier at the time of issuing the new Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines on 5 December last year, the Ministry had said applications that are at various stages of processing for permission to operate television channels or teleports will be given a period of three months to ?ensure conformity? to the new Guidelines.

This followed a Delhi High Court order which had said time should be given till 23 March 2012 for those who had applied before 5 December 2011.

Furthermore, these applicants will have to give an undertaking to abide by the amended Guidelines, and the applications of those who fail to ensure compliance within three months will be rejected, Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com.

Parliament was recently informed that a total of 681 television channels were operational in the country in April this year, out of a total of 825 television channels which had been permitted by the government as on 19 January this year.

A total of 116 channels are still within the prescribed limit of one year for operationalisation under the Uplinking/Downlinking Guidelines.

The Ministry has found 37 channels failed to become operational even after one year of permission. The licence of five of these has been cancelled, three had requested for extension of time against notice of cancellation, and 27 TV channels had sought extension for operationalising their channels and they have been asked to submit Performance Bank Guarantee. The permission of two channels has been withdrawn at the request of the concerned company.

The teleports have to pay Rs 87,500 per MHz per annum to the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of the Communications and Information Technology Ministry for uplinking TV channels.

The country had a total of 430 news and current affairs channels as on 17 November last year including 35 channels of the national broadcaster, Doordarshan.

The foreign equity holding including FDI/FII/NRI investments should not exceed 26 per cent of the paid-up equity of the applicant company seeking permission for news and current affairs channels. In the case of teleports which must have a networth of Rs 30 million for the first teleport and Rs 10 million for subsequent teleports the foreign equity cannot exceed 49 per cent.

As far as entertainment channels go, the applicant company, irrespective of its ownership, equity structure or management control, would be eligible to seek permission. But the entity applying for permission for downlinking a channel, uplinked from abroad must be a company registered in India under the Indian Companies Act 1956, irrespective of its equity structure, foreign ownership or management control.

NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry today extended till 23 March to submit documents in support of their eligibility criteria for permission to operate television channels according to the amended Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines issued in December last year.

This follows directions of the Delhi High Court that all those who had applied before 5 December 2011 when the Guidelines were issued should be given a further extension. The earlier deadline was 4 March 2012.

This will also apply to applicants whose applications were at various stages of consideration in the Ministry.

The new Guidelines had raised the networth of news and current affairs channels almost seven times from Rs 30 million to Rs 200 million for the first channel and Rs 50 million for each additional channel while general entertainment channels and downlinking of foreign channels will have to show networth of Rs 50 million for the first channel as against Rs 15 million at present, and Rs 25 million for each additional channel.

The period of permission/registration for uplinking/downlinking of channels will be uniform at 10 years. Renewal of the permissions of TV channels will be considered for a period of 10 years at a time.

Despite protests from broadcasters, the condition of non-renewal of licences of channels found guilty of violating the terms and conditions of permission including violations of the Programme and Advertisement Code on five occasions or more remains.

The changes came about 18 months after Trai made its recommendations, since the Ministry had felt those recommendations were too steep and sent its own views to the regulator for taking a final view.

NEW DELHI: Lalit Modi and his outfit Modi Entertainment Network (MEN) have not had the best of journeys in recent times. MEN has had a string of losses including ESPN and Walt Disney.

The decade-long ding-dong relationship between international fashion channel FTV and its Indian licensee owned principally by MEN has once again surfaced in the Supreme Court, with the Indian licensee seeking to restrain the foreign channel from taking on any other business ventures in India till their dispute is resolved.

The matter in the apex court ? now listed for hearing on 20 January ? relates to a decision in March 2010 by Fashion Television BVI, the global broadcaster of FTV, to terminate its contract with the Indian partner Fashion Television India Pvt. Ltd following differences over sharing revenue and outstanding payments.

The Delhi High Court on 24 May last year restrained FTV from terminating the agreement. This injunction was later removed by an arbitral tribunal.

Austria-based FTV Programmgesellschaft mbH is the parent company of the FTV brand, owned by Michel Adam Lisowski.

FTV and its Indian partner had concluded a five-year agreement in August 2001which included broadcasting rights in India and franchising fBars, the channel?s branded night clubs. This could be automatically extended by another seven years if a joint venture company was not formed between the two parties.

Initially, FTV India was to pay its foreign partner a minimum guarantee of $720,000 per annum and the channel was encrypted for Indian viewers.

However in 2003, FTV Paris went free-to-air via satellite Asiasat 2, leading to a dispute between the two sides over revenue sharing and outstanding payments.

In June 2003, FTV had prepared a civil-criminal charge against Lalit Modi and the Modi Group in France and in India.

FTV had alleged that the Modi Group had been entering into agreements selling the Fashion Bars concept to third parties and collecting substantial advance payment. It said the Modis should have sought written permission to engage Fashion TV in long-term partnerships or franchising agreements.

The Delhi High Court in June 2003 had issued a show cause notice for contempt of court against Fashion TV Paris for not complying with its order of 19 May 2003 directing FTV to re-encrypt the signal of its channel, preventing it from being free-to-air. It also restrained Fashion TV Paris from entering into any third party agreements for distribution, advertising, merchandising and licensing rights.

The order made it clear that no Indian company or group of companies could get into any business arrangement with FTV directly for business purposes in India and the SAARC region without the written consent of the Modi Group, and FTV could not get into any business arrangement in India and the Saarc Region without a consent from the Modi Group. Any such business arrangement was to be in direct violation of the Delhi High Court Order.

But in May 2004, FTV said it had resolved all differences with MEN after a year‘s battle in the Delhi High Court, and an agreement was reached between Lalit Modi and the FTV boss Michel Adam. MEN continued to control FTV India.

FTV India with its India-specific beam agreed to step up its Indian content by developing new shows and vignettes and showcasing Indian fashion, lifestyle and music.

FTV ? which had been launched in 1997 as the world?s first television network entirely dedicated to fashion, beauty and style - had agreed to return to the pay mode once the reworked distribution arrangement set in by the end of 2004.

It is present in over 130 countries on 5 continents through 31 satellites and over 1000 cable systems. Broadcast by leading global media groups such as Eutelsat, BSkyB and Astra C, Fashion TV has a confirmed reach of over 130 million households.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday commenced hearing of a petition challenging the decision of Prasar Bharati de-recognizing all associations of employees, rejecting a plea by counsel for the pubcaster seeking dismissal of the plea.

The hearing will continue on 26 September when counsel for the associations as well as those of Prasar Bharati will present their arguments.

Until now, nine associations of employees were formally recognised by the management and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which has been talking to their representatives on various issues.

However, an order issued on 8 September said no association of employees of the pubcaster is recognised and, therefore, no employee can be given preferential treatment.

It further said all employees are to be treated in a fair and transparent manner and nullified an earlier order issued by Director General of All India Radio on 18 December 2008.

The staff of All India Radio and Doordarshan protested against this move and observed a day-long dharna from 10 am to 5 pm without disrupting work on 21 September.