The news item is misleading and malicious. Downlinking of TV channels into India that are not uplinked from India are guided by the POLICY GUIDELINES FOR DOWNLINKING OF TELEVISION CHANNELS issued by Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) in November 2005. A 180 days deadline was given for registration of foreign TV channels in accordance with these guidelines, and that expired on 10 May, 2006. The notification of the Cable Television Network (Amendment) Rules, 2006 and the amendment to DTH guidelines was issued on 11 May, 2006. As per this, a cable operator may continue to carry or include, in his cable service, only those TV channels which had made an application for registration to the Central Government on or before the date of commencement of the notification, for a period of six months from the date of such commencement or till such registration has been granted or refused, whichever is earlier. The details of the 173 TV channels permitted to uplink from India, the details of the 65 TV Channels uplinked from abroad and downlinked in India are on the I&B Ministry’s website: http://mib.nic.in.

No Government of India official, neither from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting nor from the Ministry of External Affairs has been contacted by the Arab news reporter. Further, attributing the decision to ban Arab channels to Israeli, American and the British pressure on India is totally false, misleading, malicious and inspired to sour the time-tested Arab-Indian relations.