Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC) is a subordinate office under the

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

n Ministry of Information and Broadcasting tasked to monitor content of

television channels A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, wit ...

and report on violations of the programme and advertising code.

History

The centre was set up on 9 June 2008, by the

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

led

UPA government United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a centre-left political alliance of predominantly left-leaning political parties in India. It was formed after the 2004 general election with support from left-leaning political parties when no single part ...

Working

The violations committed by channels are interpreted along the lines of the programme code of the Cable Television Networks Rules (1994) which under Section 6 lists the several "don'ts" that the channels have to conform to, failing which, they shall be issued a

show cause Show or The Show may refer to: Competition, event, or artistic production * Agricultural show, associated with agriculture and animal husbandry * Animal show, a judged event in the hobby of animal fancy ** Cat show ** Dog show ** Horse show ** ...

notice. The sweeping provisions under the aforementioned act ask channels not to offend good taste, decency or attack religions or communities. Nor should they carry anything that is likely to encourage or incite violence or anything that goes against the maintenance of law and order. Specifically, the code says programmes should not telecast anything amounting to contempt of court; They should contain aspersions on the integrity of the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese f ...

and the

judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

, criticise, malign, or slander any individual in person or certain groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country. This is the code that the EMMC follows as it looks for transgressions and airtime to ministers. According to sources, "It is the tracking of ministers that consumes all the time, and prevents a proper monitoring of channels" It is here that officials watch out for television channels, about 600 of them, tripping on the programme code, drawn up by the government, offering the I&B ministry reasons to serve show cause notices on the channels. The EMMC monitors 'around 600' TV channels on a day-to-day basis. The penalties vary, depending on the degree of violation. On 2 March 2015,

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, , (born 29 January 1970) is an Indian politician, Olympic medallist, former shooting athlete and retired Indian Army officer. Rathore is a Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha from Jaipur Rural seat. ...

, the

Minister of State Minister of State is a title borne by politicians in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a Minister of State is a Junior Minister of government, who is assigned to assist a specific Cabinet Minister. In ...

for the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in a query stated that there were at least three instances in 2015 against channels over violations of the Programming and Advertising Code: While in one case, an order was issued to take a channel off air for seven days, in another case, a warning was issued. In another instance, a show cause notice was issued. According to

Arun Jaitley Arun Jaitley (28 December 1952 – 24 August 2019) was an Indian politician and attorney. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India from 2014 to 2019. Jait ...

, over 20 channels were banned for flouting of rules over the last 20 years. In January 2015, an amount of Rs.20 crore was allocated in the financial year 2014-15 for facilitating augmentation of the monitoring capacity of the EMMC. By 2017, the Government hopes to increase the capacity of the EMMC to about 1500 channels.

References

External links

{{MIBI Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India) Mass media monitoring Television organisations in India