The government today decided to refer the proposal on uplinking norms for TV channels to a group of ministers (GoM) to clear the cloud over foreign investment in news channels, and ensure that sports events of national interest are telecast on Doordarshan's terrestrial network."The union cabinet decided to refer the uplinking norms to a GoM, which has been asked to submit its report in a couple of weeks," information and broadcasting minister S Jaipal Reddy said after the cabinet meeting."I had said that like the print media let there be a ceiling of foreign investment of 26% - the current FDI level. Let the limit include all forms of investments like FIIs, OCBs, PIOs and NRIs as is being done in the case of the print media," the minister said, adding the GoM will look into the proposal.Reddy said the I&B ministry has recommended that ordinary news and non-news channels can also be uplinked through KU band instead of C band.He said the ministry has also proposed that sports events of national importance be shown on Doordarshan's terrestrial network. "Such a provision is not there in the guidelines," he said, adding that this was one of the clauses for referring the uplinking norms to the GoM.
