News Tamil Nadu

CM Stalin goofs up, writes to IT Minister instead of I&B Minister regarding Cinematograph Act amendment

July 6, 2021
The Commune

In a hilarious goof up Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote a letter to the Union Minister of Information Technology Ravishankar Prasad regarding the amendments to the Cinematograph Act instead of writing to the Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had sought public suggestions for the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2021 which will penalise film piracy with a jail term and fine, introduce age-based certification, and empower the Central government to order recertification of an already certified film following receipt of complaints.

The amendment of sub-section (1) of section 6 regarding ‘Revisional powers of the Central Government’ has attracted criticism from filmmakers. It says that if the Central Government receives complaints against a film that allude to violation of Section 5B(1) of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, then it may ask the Chairman of the Board to re-examine the film.

Many in the Tamil film industry sympathetic to the ruling DMK regime have been carrying out a misinformed propaganda against the amendments which seeks to offer intellectual property protection as well as curb film piracy.

The press release issued by the Tamil Nadu Department of Information & Public Relations (DIPR) stated that ‘Chief Minister Stalin has written to ‘Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting’ Ravishankar Prasad (who is the IT Minister and not I&B Minister) to drop the amendments to the Cinematograph Act as it reduces the powers of the state government and against freedom of speech and expression.

After the goof up came to light, the DIPR retracted the press release.

BJP Tamil Nadu General Secretary K.T. Raghavan took a jibe at CM Stalin saying that he had written to the Information Technology Minister instead of Information & Broadcasting Minister and advised him to have good advisors.

BJP Tamil Nadu spokesperson asked if incompetent DMK cadres were running the government.

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