Govt drafts code for TV programmes

NEW DELHI: The government has drawn up a draft code on programmes and advertisement to contain adverse impact of television content on viewers, specially children, Parliament was told Thursday.

In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sahba, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anand Sharma said the government had set up a committee to review existing programme and advertisement codes prescribed under the Cable and Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.

"The committee has submitted its report...a representative from Advertising Standards Council of India was a member of the above committee and the draft code was
formulated after studying similar regulation in other democracies," Sharma said.
    
He said the committee was formed with a view to containing adverse effect of programme and advertisements on viewers, specially the children.
   
Responding to another question, the minister informed the house that presently 372 TV channels were permitted to uplink their programmes from India and 61 channels were permitted to down link.
    
He said till December 8, 2008, 155 applications for uplinking were pending before it and 34 applications by private satellite channels, which have requested for permission to downlink programmes uplinked from abroad are at various stage of scrutiny in accordance with the existing guidelines.