Guidelines set for news channels planning to uplink from India
By Our Economy Bureau | 27 Mar 2003
According to the guidelines announced by Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, any channel applying for uplinking news from India must be owned by a company registered in India.
The majority of board of directors must be resident Indians as also the CEO, or the head of the channel, and those exercising editorial control over news content of the channel. Further, foreign direct investment (FDI) in news channels will be limited to 26 per cent.
Prasad said currently about 100 channels are available, of which 47 are news channels and 16 are 24-hour news channels. “Eight more applications by various news channels are pending of which five are round-the-clock channels. Among these are applications from NDTV, BBC and Star News.”
Explaining the objective of the FDI limit, Prasad said globally the regimes are restrictive, with 20 per cent limit in Australia and 25 per cent in the US. “India’s policy is most liberal.”