India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) is declining to impose special regulations or controls on kids TV.
A parliamentary debate last week saw questions raised about the non-stop transmission of cartoons on both private and public channels.
India’s government admitted that the exposure to kids’ channels and in particular cartoons could affect youngsters, but stated that there were no proposals to regulate programming or limit broadcast schedules.
One of the problems is that India has only two categories of licensed channels: ‘news and current affairs’, and ‘non-news and current affairs’ (generally interpreted to be general entertainment), and there is no separate category for children’s services.