NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing controversy relating to spot-fixing in IPL, the government is framing a stand-alone central legislation to check any activity of dishonest practice, match fixing/spot fixing in sporting events.

Announcing this over the weekend, Law minister Kapil Sibal said the process had been initiated as the attorney general for India Ghoolam Vahanvati had opined that "dishonest practices like match fixing/spot fixing are so abhorrent to the concept of sport, that they cannot fall within the concept of ?sports? occurring in Entry 33 and as explained by the supreme court in the Cricket Association of Bengal case. The power to regulate these activities cannot flow from the term ?sports? in Entry 33."

Furthermore, Vahanvati has said, "As far as Entry 34 of List II is concerned, the same reads ?betting and gambling?. In my opinion, dishonest practices like match fixing/spot fixing do not come within the purview of the terms ? betting and gambling?."

"Betting and gambling relate to wagering on the result of a sporting event or some events within a sporting event. Depending on whether such wagering is predominantly skill based or luck based, it is termed as betting or gambling respectively. On the other hand, the provisions with regard to control of malpractices would apply irrespective of whether or not betting or gambling is legal. In fact, corruption in sports can exist even if there is no betting or gambling involved. This clearly shows that Entry 34 of List II does not come in the way of a comprehensive legislation on the subject," he added.

Sibal said Vahanvati had also expressed the opinion that instead of going in for the amendments in the Indian Penal Code, it would be much better to have a stand-alone legislation. The minister said the basic draft of the proposed legislation will be complete in next few days after which it will be sent to the sports ministry for further action and discussion with all the stakeholders.

Sibal said that Rajiv Shukla and Arun Jaitley who are both associated with cricket bodies have also expressed the urgent necessity and support for such a central legislation and he hoped that the legislation will get the support of the opposition in the parliament, whenever it is tabled.

FICCI had last week recommended legitimising betting in sports to avoid unhealthy practices.

NEW DELHI: Taking a cue from the e-auction of 3G which had gone without a hitch and not resulted in the kind of scams or controversies associated with 2G, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had early this year announced adoption of the mechanism and even tried it out successfully with the e-auctions for Doordarshan?s free to air DD Direct Plus platform.

Carrying forward its decision to e-auction the third phase of 839 FM Channels, the Ministry has now decided to take the help of the Empowered Group of Ministers (eGoM) that finalised the rules for the 2010 3G spectrum auction and slated 2G frequencies.

The eGoM will also reconsider the total number of channels to be auctioned after the recommendation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on 19 April to reduce the gap between channels to 400Kkz from the existing 800Khz.

The eGoM will be responsible for the request for proposals to select an e-auctioneer as well as to decide on the fee for migration of Phase two FM licencees to Phase three.

Headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, the eGoM includes Defence minister A K Antony, I and B Minister Ambika Soni, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, Law Minister Salman Khurshid, V Narayanasamy, Minister of State in the Prime Minister?s Office, and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia,

Unlike Phase two in which licences were issued for a 10-year-period in 2006, Phase three licences will expire after 15 years.

But some potential broadcasters feel that with e-auction, the base price for some cities may be too high. The base price for new channels in existing FM phase two cities will be the highest bid amount received for that city in the last auction. In the case of cities being newly bid, the reserve price will be the highest bid price received during phase two for that category of cities in the region.

In the four metros, only Kolkata will not get a new FM channel. Mumbai will get two while Delhi and Chennai will get one each.

Under the current phase two, 245 FM channels are operational in 86 cities, with a population of over 300,000 or more each.

NEW DELHI: The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) has ?wholeheartedly? welcomed the Amendments made in the half-century-old Copyright Act.

IBF applauded everyone who had been relentlessly working for the passage of the Copyright Amendment Bill, especially Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, Leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley.

IBF also expressed its gratitude to Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni who had been instrumental in getting this historical bill passed by both houses of the Parliament.

The Amendments will benefit every creative person in India, be it an author, composer, writer, etc, who has hitherto been deprived of his/her due so far. With this Bill, the creator?s rights are upheld and respected and the amendments are a positive step in the right direction. It will beyond doubt help a large chunk of creative people in the country, where largest number of movies and television programmes are made.

IBF also welcomed the provision for statutory licensing for broadcasting organisations, noting that radio and television broadcasting were growing sectors in the country and are important medium to disseminate information, education, news, views and infotainment to the masses and the general public.

Programmes relating to music compositions, talent hunts, reality shows etc. had become quote popular on both radio and TV and involved the usage of songs and music in various ways.

Any copyright legislation needs to ensure that public interest is not compromised so far as ?public access? to information and entertainment in literary and musical works is concerned.

IBF states: "It is for serving this larger public interest of unhindered access to information in a smooth and non-discriminatory manner that Section 31D had been incorporated in the Act. It provides for the availability of content to any broadcasting organisation through the mechanism of Statutory Licensing on the payment of royalty determined by the Copyright Board which will fix separate rates for radio and TV."

The aim, IBF adds, is to ensure that the content becomes available to everyone desirous of the same without any discrimination and on reasonable royalties fixed by the Board, and at the same time ensuring the owners of copyright works do not suffer from any disadvantage.

The Copyright (Amendment) Bill ?has been and will be appreciated for the significant changes it will bring to the Broadcasting Industry as a whole.?

NEW DELHI: The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 received Parliamentary approval on the last date of the budget session, with the Lok Sabha passing it unanimously today.

The Rajya Sabha had passed the legislation late last week. The legislation will now go to the President Pratibha Devisingh Patil for her assent, before it is notified and becomes law.

The legislation had been opposed in Parliament in its last session, particularly the clause for statutory licensing for radio broadcast of literary and musical works.

Song writers, artistes and performers received unanimous support from members from all parties in the Lok Sabha for their claim to get royalty for their creations, with many MPs pointing out that the benefits of the songs have so far been kept by producers.

The bill declares authors as owners of the copyright, which cannot be assigned to the producers as was the practice till now.

Noting that artistes had been left in the lurch as the producers cornered all the royalties, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said in reply to a brief debate that the new law will help them live a good life even in old age as they would continue to get their dues for their work.

He gave examples of Shehnai exponent Bismillah Khan and music composer Ravi to press home the point that the condition of such excellent artistes was pitiable as they were not able to pay even house rent and hospital charges.

It will now become mandatory for broadcasters - both radio and television - to pay royalty to the owners of the copyright each time a work of art is broadcast. It bans people from bringing out cover versions of any literary, dramatic or musical work for five years from the first recording of the original creation.

The bill also seeks to remove operational difficulties and address newer issues related to the digital world.

However, a provision initially placed in the Bill to provide royalty to the principal director of a film in keeping with the suggestion of the Parliamentary Standing Committee has been removed. "We wanted to actually give this right over royalty to principal director. He is perhaps principal creator. But there was a feeling expressed by the Parliamentary Standing Committee that the time is not ripe to give that right. So, we are dropping it," Sibal had told the Rajya Sabha.

The cabinet had earlier deferred moving the bill because of differences between the Information and Broadcasting and HRD Ministries. It was understood that the two Ministries in their ?fine tuning? exercise had also agreed to restore the provision of statutory licensing as proposed earlier in 2010.

The amendments to the Copyright Act 1958, aim at according unassignable rights to ?creative artists? such as lyricists, playback singers, music directors, film directors, dialogue writers who will be paid royalty every time the movie they have worked in is aired on a television channel.

A statutory licence is an exception under Copyright Act. It puts limits on the basic principle of the copyright law, that authors and creators should have the exclusive right to control the dissemination of their work. Under statutory licensing, the royalty or remuneration for the author or creator is specified by law or such set negotiation.

With the bill getting clearance, the statutory licensing clause will not specify users allowing for television and new media broadcasters as well as radio broadcasters to benefit.

NEW DELHI: Participants at a meeting held here today favoured increased use of social media as an important instrument in initiating dialogue with citizens in a participatory democracy.

They were participating in a Round Table on Citizen Engagement and use of Social Media chaired by Communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal.

The meet was attended by about 100 stakeholders including social media organisations, civil society organisations, industry associations, members of the legal fraternity, representatives of government departments and agencies and others.
 
The need for convergence of different channels of communication - print, electronics, social media etc. - and the need for synergies between these channels was also expressed.

It was agreed that appropriate mechanisms need to be created within government structures to enable faster response as required by social media based interactions.

Ways of improving citizen engagement in policy formulation and implementation of its projects and programmes; requirement of capacity building within government for use of social media; contextualising social media to Indian realities including Indian language content; development of Mechanisms to protect privacy and identity of individuals; and mechanisms to address security concerns about data including personal data also came under discussion.

Sibal agreed on the greater use of social media in a participatory democracy and felt that such close interactions not only helped to build healthy democratic practices but also contribute to transparent and accountable governance.

Minister of State Sachin Pilot stressed the need of creating enabling mechanisms which would help people from all parts of our country to participate in their own language and in the form of their choice: text based, voice based or even sign based. The proposal received support from all present and it was stressed that technologies should enable participation of differently enabled individuals also.

The meet is reported to have come in the wake of Sibal asking social network companies including Facebook, Twitter and Google to remove offensive material and screen content.
Sibal had denied he was promoting censorship and said some of the images and statements on social media sites risked fanning tensions.