Govt to bring legislation to regulate electronic media: Dasmunsi

New Delhi, May 3 (UNI) The Government will bring a comprehensive Bill in the next session of Parliament to monitor and regulate the content, transmission and the intermingling of news and entertainment in the electronic media.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi announced this after the Lok Sabha passed the Cable Television Networks (Regulations) Amendment Bill, 2006 making it mandatory for every cable operator to beam DD Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha channels.

Mr Dasmunsi, referring to certain suggestions, assured the House that he would ensure a ''dominant and a prominent role'' for the eight month broadcasting of DD Lok Sabha Rajya Sabha channels on cable networks across the country.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who is the inspiration behind starting the two channels, thanked profusely the MPs for their support and suggestions to improve their functioning.

Mr Dasmunsi claimed that the proposed Bill would be the best in Europe and Asia and will be ''media friendly and self regulated''.

The role of the government and the bureaucracy will be minimised and a Press Council like mechanism for self regulation will be in place, the Minister explained.

Referring to the suggestions made the MPs, the Minister informed that his Ministry had served 75-80 show cause notices on various TV channels, but except for the two foreign channels against whom strict action had been taken for showing obscene and indecent programmes, others were found ''responsible TV channels''.

He said the government had no intention to act as ''moral police'' as the case had been made out to be after the government imposing ban on the two foreign TV channels.

He emphasised that the government could not act on its own unless some NGO or social organisation raise objection to the content of a TV channel.

The government had already banned the cigarette and liquor advertisements, he added.

The Minister also took serious view of the TV channels repeatedly airing a 16.5 second footage of Hollywood star Richard Gere planting a kiss on the cheek of Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty.

Earlier, Ms Sumitra Mahajan (BJP), K S Rao (Congress) Francis George (Kerala Congress), Tathagat Satpathy and Bhartruhari Mehtab (BJD) and V Radhakrishna (CPM) expressed concern over ''trivialisation and the corporatisation'' of the news relating to development, Parliament and the country's traditions and value system.

UNI