Prasar Bharati official broadcaster for Commonwealth Games

Prasar Bharati has taken the rights of live telecast of the Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi in October this year. Mr Baljit Singh Lalli, Chief Executive Officer of the Prasar Bharati said here today that the rights have been taken for the live telecast on Doordarshan and live transmission on AIR in India only.

Talking to mediapersons here, he said the Prasar Bharati will have first right of telecasting/transmitting in India for the live coverage of the 12-day international event.

He said Doordarshan, the public broadcaster will switch over to complete digitalisation of its terrestrial infrastructure within 8 years.

DD currently has 1,435 Analog TV transmitters, with a single TV being broadcast in service in 7 or 8 MHz bandwidth. The broadcaster has been given the mandate of complete digitalisation of its terrestrial infrastructure by 2017, he added. Asked about the improvement of programmes of DD he said, ''We do not enter any competition with any one and will remain as the public broadcaster as Parliament has already declared.'' He, however, admitted that there was scope of improvement in programmes of the channel.

He said Doordarshan centres at Jalandhar and Chandigarh had been promoting regional language writers by organising various programmes. He said the direct to home (DTH) service of Prasar Bharati will by introduced more Free to Air channels. Earlier Mr Lalli inaugurated the three- day 26th international Punjabi Conference at Punjabi University here. In his speech, he expressed concern that an ominous trend had developed that the new generation of educated and elite Punjabi families were gradually shunning learning and use of Punjabi language in their day-to-day life and prefer to converse in Hindi or English. Speaking in the same vein, Vice Chancellor Dr Jaspal Singh said use of Punjabi in conversation at home by the Punjabis will not only keep the language ticking but will also fight back the challenges posed by languages which have emerged as a vehicle of globalisation now.

He, however, cautioned the experts not to involve themselves in witch-hunting and narrow technical niceties and provide liberal atmosphere for development of Punjabi in the fields literature, Science and Information Technology.

Punjabi Tribune Editor Varinder Singh Walia said Punjabi should be made the language of science and technology as it has a lot of potential for these fields.

Dr Daljit Singh, senior Director of Doordarshan Kendra, Jalandhar also spoke on the occasion.