amitabh chakravarty::How do you feel on being removed from doordarshan first, i was not removed from my post after interviewing the us president george bush, who came to india in early march this year amitabh chakravarty

amitabh chakravarty::How do you feel on being removed from doordarshan first, i was not removed from my post after interviewing the us president george bush, who came to india in early march this year.
Ok, as people in india have so many sources of news, what does doordarshan want to offer viewers?
We broadcast in different languages, and ours is a very polytheistic service that we are providing to people across all social strata.
To provide some background, doordarshan was born out of all india radio, which was launched in 1932 by the british to fight the axis propaganda machinery.
Initially, we were part of the british interior ministry, but today we are under the ministry of information and broadcasting.
The dd news channel was launched on november 3, 2003 and doordarshan is the heart of india.
How is it faring against so many commercial channels available in india?
Our news follows certain parameters and remains politically unbiased, which is not the case with the other channels.
Most networks are owned by a corporate parent and will not carry any item favoring their rivals.
We do not suffer from any such constraints.
We cannot black out news, which is the policy being followed by our rival channels.
Our mandate is very different, and despite what other channels may say, we have a solid pocket of viewers who have not deserted us.
We are not going to show sting operations or stories in order to gain a viewership.
Our news must follow certain norms.
We receive 40 percent of our revenues from the government.
There have been times when the network has tilted far too much in favor of the government in power.
Suffice to say that we provide varied and comprehensive coverage of news events that is unmatched by other channels who indulge in little more than sensationalism.
Let me cite an example.
When the superstar actor amitabh bachchan fell sick, the ferocity with which private networks covered his illness was amazing.
One channel repeated a health bulletin on him 60 times during the course of one day.
How then do you expect to compete?
We are competing, and yet in a sense we are not part of the rat race.
We had the first visuals of the tsunami when it broke out in the southern coast of india.
We provided that footage free of cost to networks across the world.
The same thing happened at the time of the latur and the kashmir earthquakes.
Has doordarshan acquired greater freedom since it became part of the prasar bharati corporation, an independent body that oversees public broadcasting?
We no longer function as a handout of the government.
We have been able to introduce a fair degree of autonomy.
There has been a qualitative and quantitative improvement in many aspects of our bulletins.
Our weather telecasts have become much more authentic.
Our coverage of agriculture remains unmatched, because no other channel wants to touch this subject.
We are also working to raise the awareness and knowledge of science in the country and devote many more programs to social issues.
We remain a watchdog institution though all this is done within certain restraints.
Are you allowed to air political programs with a strong antigovernment slant?
The age of blacking out of news that was uncomfortable to the government is over.
But at the same time, we can hardly be seen to be hounding the government with exposes.
But there are times when our reports have changed the entire way stories are getting reported.
For example, when reports emerged posttsunami, that the kalpakam nuclear reactor had been destroyed, we rushed a team there and showed that the damage had been limited only to the external walls.
The main reactor remained undamaged.
In the same way, some private networks did a story claiming the srinagarmuzzafarabad bus service between the indian and pakistani controlled areas of the contentious kashmir region had been attacked.
This could have created a potentially damaging situation, but our team, by rushing to the spot and showing that no such incident had taken place, helped avoid a major conflagration.
Most news channels crosscheck to see our version of events.
They know we have no axe to grind.
Our ratings do not affect our salaries.
We draw modest salaries and the majority of our clientele are from small towns and villages.