March 2012

1/3/12 -- Kolkata Knight Riders has bolstered its squad by signing up four domestic cricketers -Debabrata Das and Iresh Saxena from Bengal, Saurashtra's Chirag Jani and Kerala's Sanju Samson.

Doubts pour in for DAS Implementation

Finance Ministry rejecting the demands of I&B Ministry for providing financial sops to the broadcast industry, to facilitate fast and smooth implementation of digital addressability has upset the whole process. It is surprising why I&B Ministry hurried up for passing such an important legislation, that would impact 150 million TV households without judging the priorities of the government, demand of the people and economics of the process. Such a hurried step will never stand the test of the time and may go down the drain like CAS in 2003. I am afraid; so much effort made for taking such a progressive step may not go waste and put the industry back to where it was. I sincerely hope, it does not happen this time. 

Much More Needs to be Done for Digitalization

Media is abuzz with the news regarding implementation of digital cable in the country after the notification of the latest amendment in the Cable TV Act, mandating total digitalization of all cable networks by 31 December 2014 was issued in December. However, different factions of the industry are projecting different views on the subject to suit their business plans. This is causing a lot of confusion in the minds of the masses who are the most affected from the new law. Unfortunately, there is no one to project the point of view of the masses because, their plight will be known only after the government decides to switch off analog cable on 01 July 2012 in the four metros and force them to go for the DTH service or go without the TV entertainment. So far, government is also taking them granted.