Parliamentary Panel Backs AI-Driven Broadcasting

1. Why this matters

On 21 March 2025, India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications & Information Technology tabled its 11th Report on the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting’s (MIB) 2025-26 budget. Beyond rupee allocations, the report calls for:

• Aggressive deployment of AI across Doordarshan and other public-service media to detect misinformation, automate low-value workflows, and even generate content.

  
  

• A “technology-proof” Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, updated to cover OTT and digital news and informed by fresh stakeholder consultations.

  
  

• Exploration of a unified “Media Council” and possibly merging MIB with MeitY and DoT to oversee converged audio-visual, digital, and telecom services.

These recommendations coincide with government pilots such as SAMVAD, an AI dashboard tracking social-media sentiment, and the launch of virtual news anchors “AI Krish” and “AI Bhoomi” on DD Kisan broadcasting in 50 languages.

2. India’s early AI experiments in state media

• SAMVAD portal – pulls live social-media trends, performs sentiment analysis, and integrates machine translation to amplify official messaging.

  
  

• AI anchors – deliver 24/7 agricultural updates, market prices, and weather bulletins.

  
  

• Planned AI/ML dashboard & “TruthTell” hackathon – MIB is scouting vendors for a predictive news-trend engine and crowdsourcing real-time deepfake-detection tools.

Taken together, these initiatives illustrate New Delhi’s ambition to make public broadcasting “always-on” and multilingual without proportional staff expansion.

3. The push for a single media framework

The long-awaited Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill (BSRB) is meant to replace the 1995 Cable Act and fold TV, radio, OTT, digital news—and potentially influencersinto one statute. The Standing Committee urges that:

• All public comments be re-evaluated so the law is “holistic, robust, and future-proof.”

  
  

• Periodic reviews keep pace with tech change.

  
  

• Feasibility of a Media Council be studied to harmonise rules across print, broadcast, and online outlets.

Yet MIB has indicated no timeline to introduce the Bill, despite the Committee’s request to “set a deadline.”

4. Civil-liberty red flags

Digital-rights advocates caution that widescale AI monitoring could:

• Produce false positives that chill criticism of the state.

  
  

• Enable profile-building via metadata and location tracking.

  
  

• Make takedown or demonetisation decisions opaque and hard to appeal.

  
  

A single super-regulator also raises structural concerns: a one-size-fits-all code may ignore the “push” model of TV versus the “pull” model of OTT/social platforms, and could saddle individual creators with broadcast-level compliance.

5. Comparative perspective

United Kingdom: Ofcom’s Video-Sharing Platform rules rely on co- and self-regulatory codes rather than direct AI monitoring.

European Union: The Digital Services Act mandates risk assessments and transparency reports for very large online platforms but stops short of a blanket media council.

Australia: A co-regulatory News Media Bargaining Code covers platforms and publishers while preserving separate broadcast standards.

India must decide whether to emulate these distributed models or pursue a consolidated regulator and how to embed algorithmic-transparency safeguards if AI becomes the first line of enforcement.

6. Open questions for stakeholders

7. What happens next?

• Draft Bill refresh – MIB could publish a revised BSRB for public comment in the coming Budget session if it adopts the Committee’s timeline.

  
  

• Pilot transparency mechanisms – Introduce minimum disclosure templates, similar to the EU’s approach, for any AI system that informs content moderation.

  
  

• Sandbox approach – Industry and academia can co-develop AI tools under a regulatory sandbox to test effectiveness without immediate enforcement consequences.

8. Takeaways for industry and civil society

• Broadcasters & OTTs should track SAMVAD-derived policy moves and prepare to document how their own recommender systems curb misinformation.

  
  

• Digital-rights groups must press for ex-ante algorithmic transparency and user-level redress when AI moderation goes wrong.

  
  

• Regulators should clarify jurisdictional overlaps before merging ministries, lest bureaucracy slow rapid-response needs.

  
  

• Law-makers could consider a tiered compliance ladder that scales obligations by reach and revenue, protecting small creators while holding major networks accountable.

9. Conclusion

India’s experiment with AI-enhanced public broadcasting is an undeniable leap toward “GovTech 3.0.” Yet pairing technological ambition with a sweeping, still-unfinished media law risks over-centralisation and rights dilution. The Standing Committee’s own report offers a roadmap: gather wider input, stress-test AI tools for bias and accuracy, and keep legislation iterative. The question is whether policymakers will follow that prudent advice before code and censorship go live.