Downlink policy on the cards, says Reddy

The government will formulate a new policy in the next few weeks to regulate the downlinking of channels to India. The policy is expected to address the issue of foreign institutional investors' (FII) stakeholding in Indian news channels.

A group of ministers (GoM), headed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, has also been set up to look into the existing rules and regulations relating to the print medium.

The other members of the GoM are Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy and Law Minister HR Bharadwaj.

"We are in the process of coming out with downlinking guidelines. We will go to the Cabinet in the next few weeks," Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy said at the Economic Editors' Conference here today.

To have some control over foreign channels beaming into India, the government may ask them to register in the country and set up an office here. This is expected to help it tackle the telecast of pornographic material.

Reddy also said the government was in the process of appointing a merchant bank to help it in the second phase of private FM radio licensing.

"We do not have commercial expertise in the government to deal with various issues. We are appointing a merchant bank to help us on this," he added.

The ministry will also make it compulsory for channels to share programming feed on events of national importance with public broadcaster Prasar Bharati besides providing content on various delivery platforms on a non-discriminatory basis.