Telecom companies chided for cashing in on national anthem

The national anthem continues to be in the news, though for the wrong reasons. Coinciding with the controversy surrounding Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan walking away when the band started playing the national anthem on Friday at a function to pay homage to the 26/11 martyrs in Mumbai, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has pulled up telcos for providing ‘Jana Gana...’ as a playback tone.

The DoT has cited violation of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and executive instructions relating to the national anthem, while directing telcos not to provide the facility to play ‘Jana Gana...’ as a ringback tone.

Interestingly across many other countries, national anthems and national songs are a rage for ringback tone and caller tune. While in the US, several telcos are cashing in on downloads of the national anthem as ringback tones, service providers in China offer Communist ringback tone music.

Ringback tone is the music or the tone that one hears while waiting for someone to pick up the phone.

Ring back tones and caller tunes make up for about 30% of value-added service revenue for Indian telecom operators.

Telecom and IT analyst IDC has projected that ringback tones will overtake ringtones (the tone that one hears when the mobile rings) by the end of this year. In fact, according to IDC, ringback tones are poised to become the single largest revenue source for mobile entertainment.

The Prevention of Insults to the National Honour Act states that “whoever intentionally prevents the singing of the Indian National Anthem or causes disturbances to any assembly engaged in such singing shall be punished with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.”

DoT has said that the provision of ringback tone as national anthem do not comply with the Act. “The licencees are hereby directed to ensure that services provided by them comply with provisions of the Act and executive orders,” DoT said, adding that any violation would be considered a violation of the terms and conditions of the licence agreements.