NEW DELHI: During April and May this year, two new channels received permission to launch from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

The first is Da Vinci Learning – a non-news channel owned by Da Vinci Media India Pvt. Ltd, which has got downlinking permission in English and in selected cases dubbed in local languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali. As was reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Raghav Bahl’s The Quint and Da Vinci Media are jointly launching the edutainment channel.

The second channel is Swadesh News owned by Sri Sai Media Pvt Ltd, which has received uplinking permission in Hindi, English and all Indian scheduled language.

With this, a total of six new channels have received permission in the first five months of 2015, taking the total number of television channels in the country to 832.

The other four channels that received permission earlier this year were all non-news channels, which received uplinking permission.

Thus, Da Vinci Learning is the only channel to get downlinking permission in 2015 until the end of May.

By the end of December 2014, the number of permitted satellite television channels in the country was 826.

Statistics show that 698 channels (including 382 news channels) are permitted to uplink and downlink from within the country, and 41 (including eight news channels) are uplinked from India for beaming overseas and not in the country. There is no change in channels uplinked from overseas and downlinked into India with the number remaining static at 93 (including 16 news channels).