(a) the details of various steps taken by the Government to increase the slot of news bulletins being telecast/broadcast in regional languages at national level through Doordarshan and Akashwani and in the direction of bringing improvement in this regard;
(b) whether the Government proposes to promote telecast/broadcast of such bulletins to give more importance to various regional languages of the country; and
(c) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?
THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND
BROADCASTING (COL.RAJYAVARDHAN RATHORE (Retd.)
a) to (c) Prasar Bharati has informed that all the regional channels and kendras of Doordarshan telecast regional news bulletins. The slots for such bulletins have been decided in keeping with the demands and interests of the audience.
Doordarshan telecasts 174 bulletins in 23 languages daily from its 31 (thirty one) Regional News Units (RNUs).
Further, presently All India Radio(AIR) is broadcasting national news bulletins in most of the regional languages, such as Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odiya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Sindhi besides bulletins in Hindi, English, Sanskrit and Urdu. These regional language national news bulletins sufficiently cater to the diverse lingual needs of Indian population. A demand or request received by AIR to increase the slot of news bulletins being broadcast in regional languages at national level is considered on merit. Improving the quality of news bulletins in all languages, including Hindi, English and regional languages broadcast by All India Radio is an ongoing process. News Service Division (NSD), AIR is already putting out 607 news bulletins everyday in 92 Indian languages/local dialects, and some foreign languages. These bulletins are broadcast from News Services Division Headquarter at Delhi and various Regional News Units of AIR and are carried by respective language networks and concerned External Services Division language services.