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No foreign capital will be allowed in print media: Swaraj

Foreign capital will not be allowed into the Indian print media, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj has said.

Recalling the Cabinet resolution of 1955 barring foreign media houses entering the Indian print media, she said: "The resolution has been honoured by successive governments. In the future too, there would be no dilution though foreign capital is now allowed in TV software and film."

Exuding confidence over the future of the Indian film industry, Swaraj who is leading a 35-member Ficci delegation, pointed out that the turnover of the Indian entertainment sector was at present Rs 150 billion but had the potential to achieve the Rs 600-billion target by 2005.

Out of the total amount, about Rs 300-350 billion will come from films alone, she told a press conference.

"I think this visit will go a long way towards realizing this potential," she said.

Asked about ensuring independence of the Prasar Bharati, she said the government did not interfere in its working at all.

"It is autonomous," she said, adding that a body, which includes the vice-president and the chairman of the Press Council, will choose its members and as soon as their recommendations are submitted to the government a board will be constituted.

She said it was the first time she was leading a delegation of the entertainment industry to the US, adding Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America and a stern critic of pirating of American films in India, had promised to help crack pirating of Indian films.

She said by giving films the status of industry, she had sought to release them from the clutches of underworld financiers and enable filmmakers to procure loans from regular banking sources. In fact the first such loan had now been given, she added.

The Indian delegation had also visited Universal Studios in Los Angeles and Sony Studios, she said, adding that Sony had promised to set up a studio where old Indian films could be preserved.

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