NEW DELHI, November 22: Veteran journalist Nikhil Chakravarty is to head the long awaited Prasar Bharati Board to grant autonomy to Doordarshan and All India Radio. The three member selection committee headed by Vice President Krishan Kant and comprising Press Council Chairman Justice P B Sawant and Pai Panandiker are learnt to have finalised the names of the members of the Board. The Government is expected to notify it any day now.Prime Minister I K Gujral gave an indication of this to Urdu editors who met him on Friday night at his residence. On its last legs now, the Government is on a decision-making spree, and the Prime Minister has also decided to grant a degree of autonomy to the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate on the lines recommended by a specialists' committee.Sources in Government said that S S Gill will be the Board's executive member, who will enjoy the rank of Cabinet Secretary. Gill was Information and Broadcasting Secretary in the mid eighties. But he is remembered more as secretary of the now controversial Mandal Commission which recommended job reservations for backward classes.He is believed to be the choice of V P Singh.The other members include Abid Hussain, former US ambassador, historian Romila Thapar, Hindi poet Rajendra Yadav, space scientist U R Rao who headed ISRO and has retired now, and former editor B G Verghese, now with the Centre for Policy Research.Though Nikhil Chakravarty is among the senior-most and respected journalists in the country today, it was commonly believed that Verghese would head the Prasar Bharati Board. Among those who have done a lot of work on the issue of media autonomy, he had chaired a committee after the emergency which finally led to the Prasar Bharati Bill in 1990.Congress leaders are believed to have backed the name of Abid Hussain. Hussain is close to 10, Janpath and has been associated with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The inclusion of U R Rao is attributed to his being a technical man and one from the South. The nomination of Thapar, a leftist historian, is likely to be welcomed by the Communist parties though she is also known to be close to Gujral.While most of these people are known for their integrity, they are also known to be Gujral's friends and the Prime Minister may come in for criticism for relying on a narrow catchment area for his selection.
