DD set for war, says no CNN

Anyone other than CNN and Reuters, says CEO Prasar Bharati Corporation (PBC) K.S. Sarma. He is referring to war dispatches from Iraq, if and...

Anyone other than CNN and Reuters, says CEO Prasar Bharati Corporation (PBC) K.S. Sarma. He is referring to war dispatches from Iraq, if and when America wages a war on that country.

If this sounds like a major policy shift, then PBC has shifted its stand in ways more than one. Unlike the Afghanistan war when DD relied on a battery of correspondents from print and TV to send dispatches from Ground Zero, this time it has been decided to commission the war to one company.

Despite internal criticism on such a move, production house Third Eye has been asked to cover the war at the cost of Rs 5 lakh for half-hour dispatches. There would be live reports from Baghdad, Kuwait, Kabul, Jerusalem and Washington. No one knows how long the war will go on, but DD has made a rough calculation of 20 days during which officials hope everything would be resolved.

Explaining the reason for steering clear from aligning with US broadcasters, Director General, DD, S.Y. Quraishi said: ‘‘Western media have their own yardstick. In their scheme of things, India does not figure.’’ The programme is tentatively titled Gulf War-India Matters, India Cares and dispatches would start from Monday next.

‘Double bonanza for poor, middle class’: PM’s swadeshi pitch ahead of new GST roll out

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PM Modi announced the rollout of new GST rates, calling it a "GST bachat utsav" and promising cheaper prices for medicines, insurance, and daily essentials. He emphasized that these reforms would ease doing business, attract investment, and benefit the poor, middle class, MSMEs, farmers, women, traders, and youth. He urged citizens to promote swadeshi goods.

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