New Delhi: Some of the most controversial provisions of the Draft Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill might be dropped altogether, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi has said.
The Minister has also assured that the Government will not interfere in the news and current affairs programme.
He said that the proposed Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India would be autonomous in the same way as the Press Council of India.
He said that all the controversial clauses were open to correction or rejection.
The assurances were given out in an interview to the Devil's Advocate Programme of the CNN-IBN to be broadcast on Sunday at 20:30 hr (IST).
Clauses five and 38 which empowers the government to issue binding directions in the interest of decency and morality and suspend or revoke a channel's licence if its programmes are considered prejudicial to friendly relations with a foreign country, he said.
Mr Dasmunsi also made it clear that these were only draft proposals and they could be amended, altered or dropped.
On the Clause 24, which empowers a sub-judicial magistrate to seize the equipment of a televison channel on the same ground as above, the Minister said the clause was being debated and might be amended or altogether deleted.
Regarding the Clause 10 of the draft Bill that requires channels to ensure that a minimum of 10 per cent of their programming is public service content or socially relevant, the Minister said there would be no mandate in the final bill.
He said that he was in favour of leaving this to the good sense of the channel owners.
However, the Minister insisted that the Government had the right to prescribe guidelines and norms to evaluate the broadcsting content as will be conferred on it by Clause nine (vi) of the Bill.
"Throughout the world, every Government has this right, but it should not have the right to interfere in the system and functioning of editorial and management,” he said.
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