NEW DELHI: Khursheed Ahmed Ganai, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1982 batch, has taken over as Joint Secretary (Films) in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

DP Reddy, who was holding the post until now, has proceeded on long leave and is expected to be posted back to his cadre in Punjab. Ganai is from the Jammu and Kashmir cadre.

Ganai was already serving in the same Ministry as Joint Secretary in charge of the print media.

A close confidante of the Abdullah family, Ganai has earlier served as principal secretary to Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah. A mechanical engineer before joining IAS, Ganai had also served as resident commissioner for J&K in Delhi.

Meanwhile, it is learnt by indiantelevision.com that Shankar Mohan, Director of the International Film Festival of India, has sought voluntary retirement and given three months? notice.

Mohan, then Joint Director in the Director of Film Festivals, had been made IFFI Director last year following a high-level report to Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni suggesting some changes to improve the status of IFFI and make it of international standard.

It is learnt that the Ministry has wound up the Steering Committee set up in 2010 to monitor the preparations for IFFI, and a core committee is expected to be set up for this purpose.

PANAJI: Doordarshan has, in principle, agreed to revive the slot for screening the films of the Indian Panorama though details have to be worked out.

This was conveyed to 42nd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) director Shankar Mohan, by Doordarshan director general Tripurari Sharan during his visit to Panaji.

Addressing a press meet here, Mohan stressed that this was an industry-driven festival and so the stress was on artistic merit and technology, and not market driven. 

Though he emphasised that filmmakers had come all over the country, both he and producer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra admitted that only filmmakers who were invited and paid for agreed to come and few came on their own.

They were responding to a question on why film personalities failed to turn up despite the fact that the Festival was supported by the industry.

He said that the Festival was already touching its optimum with the infrastructure available, and would grow as the years go by.

Mohan defended the choice of films in the Competition, saying he would like the festival to come up to a level where it could attract world premieres. However, all foreign films shown at the Festival in all sections are Indian premieres.

He and IFFI Steering Committee Chairman Mike Pandey said in reply to a question that the Panorama films will be taken all over the country.

He refused to comment on the inauguration at Margao, saying this was a policy-level decision taken at the local level.

Pandey said the festival had reached a high level with 167 films from 65 countries, and a large number of films came on their own.

Chopra said the guest list showed some of the best names were in India and the Indian Panorama was very popular with foreign directors.