Mumbai: Government on Friday saw nothing wrong with the state broadcaster Doordarshan telecasting live the hour-long address of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on the ground that the event was "news worthy".
Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said here that Prasar Bharati, under which Doordarshan comes, took its own decisions and that DD news covered the speeches of leaders of Congress and other parties.
The minister maintained that the event was covered by private TV channels also. However, none of the major channels showed the entire speech live.
While Prasar Bharati CEO Jawahar Sircar refused to comment on the issue, Doordarshan DG (News) Archana Dutta said, "It was just like a news event to us. So we covered it."
Javadekar suggested that Doordarshan may not have covered the RSS chief's speech live in the past because of "restrictions" placed by earlier regimes.
"Earlier there may be restrictions that this should not be shown. We have not put any restrictions. So they are covering all news worthy events," he said.
"Prasar Bharati takes its own decisions and I don't know why they were not showing earlier. It's a news worthy event. All private news channels are showing it. Then why DD should be banned?" the I&B minister asked.
He also added that many people wanted to listen to the speech which was widely watched.
When a reporter asked him about how an event that was not covered during the last ten years suddenly became news-worthy for Doordarshan after BJP's coming to power, Javadekar replied that it was due to "trampling" on DD's freedom by earlier UPA regimes that such events were not covered.
He said that at that time the question why RSS chief's speech "was being blocked" should have been asked.
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