Live India
| Live India | |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
| Headquarters | New Delhi |
| Formerly called | Janmat |
| Website | Live India |
Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| Videocon d2h | Channel 313 |
| Dish TV | Channel 564 |
Live India is an Indian Hindi TV channel owned by Broadcast Initiatives Ltd., focusing on news and commentary. The channel came in the limelight for wrong reasons when it conducted a sting operation covering a porn racket by a school teacher which was later proved fake by a high court verdict.[1] It was earlier known as Janmat, when it was focused on "views"; now the channel is called Live India.
In a Rs. 400 million upgrade in August 2007, it opened news bureaus at Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Srinagar, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Guwahati as well as its earlier offices at Mumbai and Delhi.
Sudhir Chaudhary is the CEO of Live India.
Schoolteacher sending girl students into prostitution 'expose'
On 28 August 2007, the channel aired a sting operation covering a porn racket run by a schoolteacher in Delhi involving school girls. A lady in Vivek Vihar, where the teacher Uma Khurana used to teach at a girl's school, gave the lead to the channel, after which the reporter, acting as a customer, fixed up a meeting with Mrs. Khurana at Cross River mall in late August. The grainy footage allegedly aired shows a woman negotiating a deal of Rs. 4,000 for the girl's "services". He paid Rs. 400 to her and she handed over the 15-year-old girl, an ex-student at her earlier school.[2] Later, the girl was taken into confidence, and revealed that Khurana's method was to serve the students a drink laced with drugs[3] after which she would take pictures of them in an obscene pose. These were later used by her to blackmail students into prostitution.
The day following the broadcast which claimed that Uma Khurana was the lady in the video, a crowd of several hundred people gathered at the school. After burning a police van parked nearby, they entered the school premises, pulled the teacher out of the teacher's room, and thrashed her. A simple investigation and viewing of the unedited tapes led the police to declare the "scandal" a hoax: Khurana had been framed by a businessman who claimed she owed him money. Subsequently on completion of the investigation, the Police had also submitted charge sheet in the case where it was made clear by the Delhi Police that no evidence was found against Ms. Uma Khurana to support the allegations of child prostitution made against her.
Later the aforementioned news item was published in the Hindustan Times which indicated that there was something more to the whole string operation than what met the eyes. In the aforesaid news item it was stated that the girl who had been shown as a student who was allegedly being forced into prostitution by Ms. Uma Khurana was neither a school girl nor a prostitute but a budding journalist eager to make a name in the media world.[4]
This led to calls for sting operations being curtailed. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which has been trying to stifle sting operations, especially against politicians, said that "It should have been left to the police to take action against the accused."[5]
Meanwhile, the role of Live India, the channel which aired the sting is being scrutinised by the police. The police had arrested, Khurana, a teacher at the Government Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya's Daryaganj branch, after the mob violence on Thursday.
But the police and parents claim that the channel's approach in broadcasting the expose was wrong. It is believed the channel had conducted the sting over a month back, when Khurana was a teacher at the Vivek Vihar branch of the school.[6]
Government Ban
The Indian Government banned the channel for a month due to the false sting. It was banned because it breached the Cable Networks Regulation Act, 1995, by broadcasting an admittedly doctored sting operation.[7]
Competitors
- P-7 News
- A to z News
- Total TV
References
- ↑ Ninad Thakur (13 September 2007). "Cops helpless in school scandal case". BBC News. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
- ↑ Pratul Sharma & Neeraj Chauhan (31 August 2007). "Sting op triggers riots in Old Delhi". Indian Express Delhi Newsline. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
- ↑ "Delhi scarred by TV sting operations". Times of India. 31 August 2007. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
- ↑ {{cite http://indiankanoon.org/doc/45618/ | title =Court On Its Own Motion vs State on 14 December, 2007 | auhtor =M Sharma | publisher =Indian Kanoon | url =http://indiankanoon.org/doc/45618/}}
- ↑ Chetan Chauhan (31 August 2007). "Sting revives debate on content". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
- ↑ Puneet Nicholas Yadav (1 September 2007). "Cops helpless in school scandal case". DNA – India. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
- ↑ Jyotsna Singh (21 September 2007). "India bans faked report channel". BBC News. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
- 1 2 3 4 http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut_country.html
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