NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari has assured Parliament that the time of Urdu news from the Hyderabad Kendra of Doordarshan would be increased as the need arises.

He said that 44 Regional News Units of News Services Division, All India Radio, broadcast regional news bulletins.

In addition to this, a Regional News Unit has been set up at Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir which broadcasts regional news bulletins.

In Doordarshan, 29 Regional News Units telecast regional news from its various Kendras.

He said in reply to another supplementary question that both AIR and Doordarshan regularly transmit programmes which help the farmer in learning about various cultivation techniques and keeping him updated about the latest in this particular field.

There are 48 regional news bulletins in 18 languages, which are produced centrally from the News Service Division of AIR. In addition to this, 181 bulletins in 74 languages are produced and broadcast from the RNUs, and this covers the 22 scheduled languages.

There are 1019 news-based programmes from RNUs in 21 languages which are broadcast. And this totally amounts to 117 hours and 15 minutes of programming per week. In addition to that, you have 290 headline bulletins from FM Rainbow in 15 languages.

He accepted a suggestion to make the news as local as possible and content rich and more focussed on local imperatives.
 
Tewari said in reply to another supplementary that Prasar Bharati had been taking steps to augment infrastructure both in terms of gathering of news and dissemination of news in Doordarshan and AIR. A process has been started of digitising the various studios of Doordarshan to ensure that the quality of news which is broadcast is of the optimum level and this project will be completed by 2017. A total of 145 stations are currently being digitised.

In AIR, there are complaints which have come in that the medium wave transmission is not audible, and that, to a certain extent, is correct because over the years, the power of the transmitters have gone low because these are legacy equipment.

A total of 71 transmitters have been replaced in the 11th Plan and the power of 33 medium wave FM transmitters is being upgraded to see that broadcasting becomes better.

Prasar Bharati is also in the process of recruiting additional people and 1150 vacancies have been sanctioned.

NEW DELHI: As many as 120 of 281 cases in Doordarshan and 12 out of 516 cases in All India Radio (AIR) have been decided in favour of the staff by the Central Administrative Tribunal and various courts.

A large number of these cases are now pending in appeal in various courts.

Prasar Bharati sources said the Recruitment Regulations for various categories of Prasar Bharati employees were notified during 2000-2002.

However, these were kept in abeyance by Prasar Bharati as the terms and conditions were not acceptable to the employees. The amendments made to Section 11 of the Prasar Bharati Act in 2012 has settled the status of employees working in Prasar Bharati. In pursuance to amendments to Section-11, it was decided to frame new Recruitment Regulations governing the service conditions of the employees recruited by Prasar Bharati after 5 October 2007.

Following approval of Prasar Bharati?s Board, the Government has already communicated its approval for the Recruitment Regulations in respect of 4 categories of staff, viz. Cameraman Grade-II, Engineering Assistant, Technician and Head Clerk/ Assistant (for notification).

NEW DELHI: Based on inputs from viewers and the audience research surveys conducted by it, Doordarshan has revamped the prime time programming on its main channels: DD National, DD Urdu, DD Bharati and DD News.

Doordarshan Director-General Tripurari Sharan told indiantelevision.com that five new series had commenced from today on the DD National channel.

Sharan said that the inputs received from various sources relating to the 8 pm to 10 pm slot had been collated before revamping the channels.

While the revamping of DD Bharati had taken place from Republic Day with the introduction of some new programmes and changing the time slots of some of the others, DD National and DD Urdu had been revamped from this week.

DD News will also shortly see a change in news presentation, with new presenters and a lighter format. Sharan said discussions and news will be presented in one-hour format for Hindi and English news. Attempts had also been made to make use of appropriate technology to upgrade the standard of presentation.

Additional Director General Ashok Jailkhani said that the attempt in DD Urdu had been to understand the psyche of the viewers before deciding the programmes. He said that around 50 proposals had been cleared for new serials on DD Urdu following a decision by the Prasar Bharati Board, and were in various stages of production.

ADG Raj Shekhar Vyas who looks after DD National said the attempt had been to consolidate the prime time slot with quality programming. Doordarshan is also reviving some of its popular shows like ?Ek Tha Rusty?, and ?Byomkesh Bakshi?.

NEW DELHI: The role of the pubcaster is coming under review to give it a push in the wake of growth of private satellite television channels and the government?s design to make it financially self-running. The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has constituted a seven-member expert committee to review the institutional framework of public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, including its relationship with the government.

Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, is the chairman of the expert committee.

The committee will have Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar as its convener. It will also examine the continuing role of the pubcaster and measures needed to ensure technical upgradation of the organisation.

The timing of the setting up of the committee coincides with the recent announcements of fresh financial packages to the pubcaster, and the government undertaking to pay salaries of employees who had been employed with the pubcaster as on 5 October 2007.

The committee will review the status of implementation of the recommendations made by various committees that have undertaken study of Prasar Bharati, namely, the Sengupta committee, the Bakshi Committee and the Narayanamurthy committee and suggest a road map for enhancing the reach and potential of the public broadcaster.

It can suggest measures to sustain, strengthen and amplify Prasar Bharati`s role as a public broadcaster with special reference to its relationship with government in the emerging context.

It will also suggest measures to digitise the archival material in the possession of Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) including material from independence movement era, and develop enabling infrastructure, in the form of data digitalisation systems, data centers and networks, etc.

The committee will suggest ways of using the new media to deliver digital content - both in broadcast mode (DTH) and in a demand-based mode (Free on social media like You-Tube, and on payment through IPTV).

It will work out a strategy for creating a network of domestic and overseas business partners for ensuring wider reach to a worldwide audience including creating an exclusive overseas service.

The members of the committee are retired IAS officer Asha Swaroop, who had earlier served as secretary in the I&B Ministry, B K Gairola (Mission Director e-Governance), Shekhar Kapur (a member of the National Innovation Council), Professor M P Gupta of IIT Delhi; and Jitendra Shankar Mathur, additional secretary and nominated member on the Prasar Bharati Board.

NEW DELHI: Doordarshan and All India Radio, which provide a platform for political parties to make poll broadcasts before every election, will also organise a maximum of two panel discussions and/or debates on the Kendras/Stations for the forthcoming elections to the state assemblies in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura.

Each eligible party can nominate one representative to such a programme, but the Election Commission of India will approve the names of coordinators for such panel discussions and debates in consultation with the Prasar Bharati Corporation.

The Commission has, as in previous years, worked out a schedule for the time to be given for poll broadcasts to different parties. The facilities of use of broadcast time and telecast time will be available to six national and three state parties.

The facilities will be available from the Regional Kendra of Doordarshan and All India Radio and in the headquarters of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura and relayed by other stations within the respective States.

A base time of 45 minutes will be given to each party uniformly on the Regional Kendra of Doordarshan network and All India Radio network and the additional time to be allotted to the parties has been decided on the basis of the poll performance of the parties in the last assembly election from the States of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura.

In a single session of broadcast, no party will be allocated more than 15 minutes.

The period of broadcast and telecast will be between the last date of filing the nominations and will end two days before the date of poll in the states of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. However, there will be no telecast or broadcast during the 48 hours preceding the close of polls as per specific provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951.

Prasar Bharati in consultation with the Commission will decide the actual date and time for broadcast and telecast. This will be subject to the broad technical constraints governing the actual time of transmission available with the Doordarshan and All India Radio.

The guidelines prescribed by the Commission for telecast and broadcast will be strictly followed. The parties will be required to submit transcripts and recording in advance. The parties can get this recorded at their own cost in studios, which meet the technical standards prescribed by Prasar Bharati or at the Doordarshan/All India Radio Kendras.

They can, in the alternative, have these recorded in the studios of Doordarshan and All India Radio by advance requests. In such cases, the recordings may be done at the State Capital and at timings indicated by Doordarshan/All India Radio in advance.

Time Vouchers will be available in the denomination of 5 minutes with one voucher having time allotment from 1 to 4 minutes and the parties will be free to combine them suitably.

Introduced for the first time for the Lok Sabha elections in 1998, the scheme of free broadcasts was extended by the Commission to the State Assemblies held after 1998 and General Elections to the Lok Sabha in 1999, 2004 and 2009.

With the amendments to the Representation of People Act 1951 through "Election and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Act, 2003" and the rules notified thereunder, equitable time sharing for campaigning by recognized political parties on electronic media now has statutory basis.

In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (a) of the Explanation below section 39A of the Representation of People Act, 1951, the Central Government has notified all such broadcasting media which are owned or controlled or financed wholly or substantially by funds provided to them by the Central Government as the electronic media for the purposes of that section. Therefore, the Commission has decided to extend the said scheme of equitable time sharing on electronic media through Prasar Bharati Corporation to the ensuing General Election to the State Legislative Assemblies of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura.