WSN Service
NEW DELHI: Nervousness is writ large on the faces Of India’ s ruling circles with the prospects of country’s television viewers being exposed to the world pro- &rams of B.B.C., C.N.N. and other media groups.
The B.B.C. began on Monday a four to six hour test run on Star TV with plans to introduce a 24-hour channel from November 15. Pakistan is said to be getting a transponder in August to use it for broadcast rather than tele-communication purposes.
Reactions to these media developments have begun to appear in Indian newspapers. Controlled mostly by upper Castes, the commentators feel that Indian viewers’ exposure to international information networks is dangerous politically. In this connection, India’s leading daily, Times of India, has carried a front page report by one Amit Agarwal who quotes Ashish Ray, South Asian Correspondent of L.T.N., London: “How can the Indian government be so complacent? Doesn’t it realize that it is the same satellite T.V.? Invasion by the west that helped along the revolutions in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union?”
Indian commentators also feet that the extension of T.V. network by Pakistan will also have a “harmful effect”. Already the people living near Indo-Pak border are exposed to Pakistan T.V. invasion. If this invasion gets extended to the interior of India, it will have effect on Muslims. Also Pakistan will step up its propaganda in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, it is pointed out.
To counter the international information “virus”, India’s semiofficial news agency, Press Trust of India, circulated a story datelined Amritsar suggesting that clinics have been swarmed by child patients following the CNN and B.B.C. programs with TV. Viewing telling on their eyes. The agency quoted an anonymous eve specialist to suggest that the rise in eye parents and the introduction of the international T.V. networks was no Coincidence”.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 18, 1991
