More than 200 Doordarshan (DD) staff members, comprising correspondents, camerapersons, engineers, technicians and others from various cities, have been deployed to cover the inauguration of Kashi Vishwanath Dham by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 13 and associated special programmes, News18 has learnt.
According to government sources, the programmes on DD News and DD India on December 13 include live telecast of the PM’s events from 11 am to 3.30 pm and from 5 pm to 8.45 pm.
“The inauguration of Kashi Vishwanath Temple corridor will also be telecast live on DD National and RLSS (Regional Language Satellite Stations) channels,” a source in the government said.
Additionally, a special two-hour long “Newsnight” will be mounted from the banks of the Ganges on board a special boat from 8pm to 10pm on December 12, the sources said, adding that a special 30 minute-long programme will also be aired from Varanasi on DD India on December 12 titled, “Kashi: A New Identity”.
The programmes will also include an interview with Dr. Bimal Patel, architect and planner of Kashi Vishwanath Corridor project.
A senior government official said local All India Radio (AIR) teams in Varanasi will cover the event for broadcast across the network.
Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati tweeted that DD has made elaborate preparation for the live coverage of PM Modi’s visit to the Kashi Vishwanath Dham on Monday with 55 cameras, seven satellite uplink vans, jimmy jibs as well as the latest drones and radio frequency cameras.
Sources said a couple of the latest drones and RF cameras have been deployed at Varanasi for the grand coverage. They, however, remained tight-lipped on how many teams from across how many cities have been diverted to Varanasi for the event’s coverage.
Past Coverage of PM Modi
Insiders in DD said this is not the first time that such a grand scale arrangement has been made for an event that involves the Prime Minister.
“If you see all the latest events of the Prime Minister across the spectrum, DD has been covering all of them extensively,” an official said.
Opposition parties had in the past complained about this and had called the national broadcaster biased, alleging that it provides disproportionate airtime to a specific party.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, opposition parties had complained to the Election Commission of India about DD being biased after the broadcaster aired PM Modi’s ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ programme for about an hour.
Subsequently, the ECI had directed the information and broadcasting ministry to desist from extending preferential or disproportionate airtime in favour of any party and extend commensurate and balanced coverage of the activities of all recognised political parties.
Defending DD’s coverage, a senior government official said all events involving the Prime Minister and President of India are of national importance and will hence get adequate airtime in DD and AIR.
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