India

The government today said a Chinese woman, reportedly deported last month, was a journalist and there was no evidence about her being a spy as some media reports had suggested, according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. "There was indeed a case of a Chinese lady who had met some of these (Naga) leaders. But on investigation, we were not able to establish that she was a spy," home minister P...

Two stations of the proposed new Kolkata Metro Railway line will be named after journalists Barun Sengupta and Gour Kishore Ghosh, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Monday, according to Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). "The stations at Science City and Chingrighata of the new Metro Railway line between Kavi Subhas in South 24 Parganas and Dum Dum airport in North 24 Parganas will be...

Broadcaster Al Jazeera said Tuesday its English language service has got a downlink license to broadcast in India. Cable and satellite companies in India will be able to add Al-Jazeera English to their channel line-ups after the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting granted the licence, the Qatar-based broadcaster said in a statement. "This is an exciting breakthrough that has been in the works...

A journalist discharging his/her professional duties cannot be subjected to humiliation or ill-treatment by police merely because something has been written against them, the Madras High Court has observed. Quashing a 'history sheet' opened against M Rajkumar, reporter of Udzal Echerrikkai magazine and a publisher, Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar on Friday held that if any damage was caused to a...

Driven by strong economic performances and rapidly improving consumer confidence levels in the first quarter of 2010, main media (television, newspaper and magazine) advertising activity in India surged by 32 per cent, the highest growth amongst the 12 Asia Pacific markets covered in the Nielsen Company's survey on media spends. Overall across the 12 markets, media spends grew by 18 per cent. For...

Expressing concern over the alarming proportion of paid news in the Indian media, the Election Commission on Thursday directed officials to closely monitor poll-related media reports. In a communication to the state election commissions, the Election Commission of India described paid news as a serious electoral malpractice, Asia News International (ANI) has reported. "The recent phenomenon of...

In Delhi, Lok Sabha TV (LSTV) recently equalled the television ratings (TVR) of prominent news channels such as CNBC 18, Headlines Today and CNN-IBN, according to TAM India rating agency, according to the Hindu Businessline. The details: [ Link] With a TRP of .01, LSTV's viewership was higher than several international channels such as BBC and CNN. Similar ratings were recorded in Mumbai, where...

The Government on Wednesday constituted a seven-member committee headed by FICCI general secretary Amit Mitra to suggest a robust television rating point (TRP) system mechanism. The committee would review the existing TRP system in India and suggest measures to bring in place an effective mechanism for a transparent TRP system in the country, the Press Trust of India has reported. It will submit...

Jagran Prakashan, the publishers of Dainik Jagran, will take over all the print businesses of Mid-Day Multimedia, which publishes the afternoon tabloid Mid-Day, the Hindu Businessline has reported. According to the agreement announced on Wednesday, a Mid-Day shareholder will get two shares of Jagran for every seven owned in the company. Mid-Day's publication business operated by its arm, Mid-Day...

The government is mulling over the formation of a Broadcasting Authority of India, which would address broadcast related issues, agencies have reported. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni said that, "While content regulation is a subject on which the government has been holding discussions with broadcasters, we are looking at setting up an authority for addressing issues related...