DM, SP, college principal to decide what you can see

Cable TV operators, beware! Principals of local women’s colleges could be keeping tabs on what you are showing in your localities. They...

Cable TV operators, beware! Principals of local women’s colleges could be keeping tabs on what you are showing in your localities. They will be part of the monitoring committees being set up by the I&B Ministry in every district of India to check transmission of pornographic programmes on cable TV networks.

Having failed to enforce the Cable TV Act effectively, the government has issued orders for setting up district-level monitoring panels for programmes and ads telecast by cable TV operators and channels.

Said I&B Joint Secretary R. Parsuram: “These committees will ensure compliance with programme and advertising codes enshrined in the Cable Television (Networks) Act, 1995.” He said the order would help enforcement at the local level.

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These surveillance committees, one in every district, will be headed by the district magistrate, and will have as members the district police superintendent, principal of one of the women’s colleges in the district and the district public relation officer. The other members, to be nominated by the DM, will include representatives of a prominent NGO in the district and of an NGO dealing with women’s welfare.

The panel will also induct a psychologist, a sociologist or an academician. In case of cities having the commissioner system, the police commissioner head the committee. In case there are no women’s colleges in the district, the DM can appoint the principal of a girls’ school, said Parsuram. The objective is to get a broad interpretation of what constituted obscenity or a violation of the law.

“The committees will review and deliberate on complaints, even take suo motu cognisance of violation of codes,’’ says the government order. If the panel detects a violation, the DM can, under Section 20 of the CTV Act, confiscate the equipment or initiate action under IPC. In case of a violation by a channel beaming the programme, the DM will apprise the additional secretary of the I&B Ministry.

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