Broadcast Bill not likely in this session

With only a few days left for the Parliament session to end, the government today indicated it was unlikely to table the broadcast Bill next week in the midst of a standoff with broadcasters on the content code.

"The Bill is not ready as yet," Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, said. He added he would discuss it further with various political parties. The session is due to end on September 14.

Softening his stand on the code after meeting the broadcasters, editors and cable operators last night, the minister observed the stakeholders were "not in favour of any regulations as they have some apprehensions."

He said he would look into the points raised by the various stakeholders and review the draft code. "I will also talk to political leaders and various parties in Parliament in this regard and finally report to UPA chairperson pertaining to the issue and reality," said Dasmunshi. Strongly opposing the Broadcast Bill containing the content code, the broadcasters demanded at the meeting that there should be at least "one-year moratorium" on the Bill. Dasmunshi turned down the demand saying one year was "too long."

However, the minister said he "cannot assure any particular date and time" for laying the Bill in the House again.

During the meeting, the minister said that he was not against sting operations.

"Sting operations for genuine interest of the public should not be discouraged. But sting operation should not humiliate women for business purpose. This will have a bad effect on society," he said, alluding to an "expose" by a news channel whose sting operation against a school teacher in Delhi might have been fake.

"Sting operations in the name of TRP jump to defame people and not to justify the facts should not be supported at any cost," the Minister said.

The broadcasters said they will prepare the content code on their own and submit it to the government.

"What we have said is that any content code described by the government would not be acceptable to us. We are in the process of drafting our own code and would submit that very soon," KVL Narayan Rao, CEO, NDTV, said.

He said the Minister assured that the final bill, after considering various provisions, would probably "be half of what the present document is."