By Robin Sam
IN 1993, when ‘Bible ki kahaniya’ (Stories from the Bible) was telecast on Doordarshan the Christian community in India thought the Great Indian Epic that had roots in their own Scriptures had arrived. The big-budget TV serial was marked by its use of technology and an impressive line-up of Bollywood and Hollywood actors among its cast. Shammi Kapoor, Kabir Bedi, Raza Murad and Urmila Matondkar were some of the lead actors. The program was abruptly taken off air in 1995 because the government of the day did not want to confront Kashmiri militant organizations and some Hindu groups who got up against the telecast of the serial. The serial was directed by Raghunath Paleri, Isaac Thomas Kottukapally and T K Rajeev Kumar and produced by Navodaya Appachan.
After the fiasco of ‘Bible ki kahaniya’, no serious attempts were made at producing Christian content for Indian television. With the opening up of the skies, the vast populace of the country were treated to a flurry of serials, movies and cinematic programmes through private TV channels who to this day try to outscore each other in being louder, crasser and bolder in programming.
The standard of programming in Indian TV channels has deteriorated to such an extent that there is hardly any difference among Channel A, Channel B and Channel Z. The average Indian TV viewer is left with little or no option to get out of the trash spewed at him daily. Why does so much trash exist on our TV channels? We asked our correspondent to identify the reasons behind the deterioration in programming. She came up with 9 reasons.
AICC general secretary Abraham Mathai on Indian TV channels
Galilean founder C D Jebasingh on why we must teach church on investing in media
