The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has constituted a four-member committee to review the guidelines on television rating agencies headed by Shashi Shekhar Vempati, CEO of Prasar Bharati. This comes after the Mumbai police investigations that revealed that a few news channels had tampered with the ratings.
The Ministry on Wednesday said the existing guidelines were issued after detailed deliberations by the Parliamentary committee and on the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). These guidelines have been in operation for the last few years. It said a need has been felt to have a fresh look keeping in view of the recent recommendations of TRAI, technological advancements and for further strengthening of the procedures for a credible and transparent rating system.
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The committee will carry out an appraisal of the existing system, examine TRAI recommendations notified from time to time, overall industry scenario and address the needs of the stakeholders, the order says.
Dr. Shalabh, Professor of Statistics from IIT Kanpur, Rajkumar Upadhyay, Executive Director of C-Dot and Professor Pulak Ghosh of Decision Sciences Centre for Public Policy are the other members of the committee.