The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has written to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to advise production houses to obtain No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the MoD before the telecast of any film, documentary or web series on Army theme in public domain.
“This has been done to curtail the incidents which distort the image of defence forces and hurt the sentiments of defence personnel and veterans,” an Army source said. The letter dated July 27 was written following complaints to the MoD from veterans and citizens raising strong objections about the portrayal of Indian Army personnel and military uniform in an insulting manner in two recent web series, the source stated.
“In some of the web series like ‘Code M’ on Zee 5 and ‘XXX Uncensored (season-2)’ on ALT Balaji, the scenes related to the Army are far from reality and present a distorted image of the armed forces,” the source said, adding that some concerned citizens and ex-servicemen associations have even lodged First Information Report (FIR) against ALT Balaji seeking legal action against the producer and the Over The Top (OTT) platform.
