DD’s here, there & everywhere the PM is

NEW DELHI, SEPT 8: When Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee begins to orate in his trademark fashion at the UN General Assembly at 9.30 pm Indian Standard Time, all of the 80-odd private channels in India will get the feed, live or deferred, courtesy Doordarshan. DD has made arrangements with the UN’s TV network to ensure that the Prime Minister’s speech will be telecast live from New York.

The rest of the footage would be telecast by DD’s four camera and news teams. While three teams left ahead of PM’s departure, one joined him in the aircraft. Mrinal Pande and Suneet Tandon are DD’s official anchors, who will host programmes for the next 12 days on DD1 and DD’s new channel.

The national channel will also telecast live the PM’s 30-minute address to the US Congress on September 14, at 8.30 pm IST. The next day, the PM’s official welcome ceremony at the White House, delegation-level talks, the meeting between Vajpayee and President Clinton and a joint press conference will also be aired. Vajpayee will walk into White House again at 8.30 pm. The schedule suggests that footage of the Vajpayee-Clinton meeting will last for 15 minutes and delegation-level talks for 30 minutes.

According to Deepak Sandhu, head of DD’s news division, all arrangements for the live telecast have been made directly by the Prasar Bharati.