World Censors

India's newly formed council of TV censors has made its first annual report to the Indian Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

It said that it had received 717 specific complaints, of which 47% were about supposed obscenity and nudity while 16% were regarding depiction of violence. 7% complaints related to TV content supposedly hurt religious and cultural sentiments. The report said that nearly 16% of specific complaints pertained to the theme of crime and violence and many of these were against shows based on actual crime cases.

Referring to the complaints related to sex, obscenity and nudity, the Broadcasting Content Complaint Council report said that a large number of such complaints were found to be violating Indian Broadcasting Federation's self-regulatory guidelines. The report said:

The BCCC directed some channels that since these programmes were not suitable for telecast during general viewing hours, they should suitably modify the content and air such programmes during restricted viewing hours.

In some cases, channels completely took programmes off air.

The main concern was use of vulgar language by participants and the alleged obscene acts performed by them during the shows.

The Indian censor board has decided to do away with the beeps when substituting for 'objectionable' verbal content including expletives, derogatory references to women and specific communities.

In a move to discourage filmmakers from using strong language in cinema, the censor board has decided to mute what the Board sees as inappropriate words.

Pankaja Thakur, the Chief Executive Officer of the Central Board Of Film Certification, said, We have been told beeps don't work. We've decided to mute inappropriate words instead of beeping them.

The new policy will be applicable with immediate effect.

The Indian film censors at the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) have launched a new website at cbfcindia.gov.in .

The CBFC introduce themselves:

Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is a Statutory body under Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, regulating the public exhibition of films under the provisions of the Cinematograph Act 1952.

Films can be publicly exhibited in India only after they have been certified by the Central Board of Film Certification.

The Board, consists of non-official members and a Chairman (all of whom are appointed by Central Government) and functions with headquarters at Mumbai. It has nine Regional offices, one each at Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Cuttack and Guwahati. The Regional Offices are assisted in the examination of films by Advisory Panels. The members of the panels are nominated by Central Government by drawing people from different walks of life for a period of 2 years.

At present films are certified under 4 categories:

• U: Unrestricted Public Exhibition
• UA: Unrestricted Public Exhibition - but with a word of caution that Parental discretion required for children below 12 years
• A: Restricted to adults
• S: Restricted to any special class of persons