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The Communiqué News

The France-based Annecy International Animation Festival featured India's Creative Economy.

  • 2 min read

15 June 2023: A delegation from India led by Secretary I&B highlights the ministry's incentives for the AVGC industry and discusses the possibility of holding an international animation festival in India.


Swati Bhat

an Indian delegation headed by the Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, Shri. Apurva Chandra has been displaying India's talent for producing animation and VFX content for audiences throughout the world at AIAF

This year marks India's debut participation in The Annecy International Animation Festival (AIAF). At the AIAF, an Indian delegation headed by the Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, Shri. Apurva Chandra has been displaying India's talent for producing animation and VFX content for audiences throughout the world.

India has lately emerged as a preferred destination for VFX and animation content for global production houses. The animation and VFX market in India was pegged to be valued at Rs 109 billion in 2021, with the VFX business alone amounting to Rs 50 billion. This figure is expected to grow to Rs 180 billion by 2024 according to a E&Y report. India's participation at Annecy, therefore, assumes greater importance as the country showcases its abilities in the sector to international buyers.

Speaking about India's participation, Shri. Chandra said, "The Animation, Gaming, Visual Effects, and Comics (AVGC) Sector in India is making progress with the adoption of world-class techniques and innovative technologies, coupled with a pool of immensely talented professionals. India is one of the few countries providing cash incentives to foreign companies for making AVGC content in India. The incentives are the same as for shooting films in India. This is a huge opportunity for companies to benefit from this. As a country, we are committed to providing incentives to the industry, as well as supporting pre and post-production activities in India."

At the festival, Shri. Chandra spoke with AIAF director Michael Marin about ways to deepen India's participation in Annecy and the possibility of partnering with France to establish an animation film festival in India. Shri. Chandra opened the India Pavilion, which was built around the Saraswati Yantra design theme, and he also spoke with the Indian creative community whose works were chosen as winners of the prestigious Annecy festival competition in 2023. Young artists Arvind Jeena, Nikita Prabhudesai Jeena, Upamanyu Bhattacharyya, and Kalp Sanghvi attended the event among veterans of the field such Kireet Khurana, Saraswati Vani Balgum, Biren Ghosh, Anil Wanvari, and Anne Doshi.

Besides, Shri. Chandra interacted with delegates from other countries and the discussions centered around the various initiatives of the Ministry with regard to the AVGC sector, and the incentives given by the Indian Government for ease of business in the sector.




The Central Board of Film Certification unveiled the new mobile app & its updated website.

  • 2 min read

6 June 2023: The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting's Central Board of Film Certification has recently debuted its newly updated website (cbfcindia.gov.in) and new mobile app (e-Cine App). Since 2017, CBFC has been working on Phase II advanced digitization, and this represents one of the most significant turning points. The goal is to increase working transparency and efficiency.

The freshly updated website and mobile app were unveiled by Shri Prasoon Joshi, Chairman of the CBFC, with the goal of streamlining the certification process by giving filmmakers, applicants, and all users in general more beneficial, user-centric features.

Both the newly updated CBFC website and the new mobile app are designed to be user-friendly for both candidates and CBFC employees to use at their desks and on mobile devices to learn, find useful information, and complete simpler tasks.

The updated FAQs, a Help Desk, Contacts, a user guide, a video tutorial on registration, an application process, real-time progress tracking, and a search facility are some of the new features of the CBFC website that offer a more thorough understanding of film certification, various Acts, Rules, Important Circulars/communications, Court Judgements, and statistical data on certified films to the applicants.

A timely update on current and upcoming events, circulars, orders, notifications, etc. will be available on the CBFC website after it has been updated. The registered users can log in using their current credentials indefinitely.

The recently created mobile app offers features like real-time progress tracking of application status and notification of potential screening dates, a facility to respond to the notification and show cause notice, and uploading of required documents (including video of fewer than 10 minutes duration), thus encouraging complete automation process and little human intervention. The CBFC Officials may also create and arrange screening committees, monitor the progress of applications, view notice answers, and authorize requests to switch regional offices, among other things.





The Ministry of I&B warns television networks not to air upsetting or stressful content.

  • 3 min read

A warning against reporting occurrences of accidents, fatalities, and violence, particularly violence against women, children, and the old, in a way that seriously contradicts "good taste and decency" has been issued today by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to all television networks. The warning was issued after the Ministry became aware of a number of incidents of lack of discretion on the part of television broadcasters.

The Ministry claims that television channels have repeatedly broadcast over several minutes while circling the actions to make them even more horrifying, dead bodies of people, images or videos of injured people with blood all over them, close-ups of people being brutally beat, including women, children, and the elderly, and continuous cries and shrieks of a child being beat by a teacher. It has also been made clear that the audience finds the way such instances are reported repulsive and upsetting.

The impact that such reporting has on different audiences has been underlined in the guideline. According to the paper, youngsters may suffer negative psychological effects as a result of these reports.

The advise has emphasised the critical problem of privacy invasion, which may be potentially libellous and defamatory. Television is a platform that is typically used by families in homes with individuals from all cohorts — old, middle-aged, small children, etc. — and from various socioeconomic backgrounds. As a result, the broadcasters are held to a certain level of responsibility and discipline, which has been codified in the Programme Code and the Advertising Code.

The Ministry has seen that, in the majority of cases, videos are pulled directly from social media and broadcast without any editorial judgement or alterations to guarantee that they comply and are consistent with the Programme Code.


Here is a list of several instances of recently broadcast stuff like this:

1. 30.12.2022 showing the distressing images and videos of a cricketer injured in an accident, without blurring.

2. 28.08.2022 showing disturbing footage of a man dragging the dead body of a victim and also focusing on the face of the victim with blood splattered around.

3. 06-07-2022 about a distressing incident in which a teacher can be seen brutally thrashing a 5-year-old boy until he lost consciousness in a coaching classroom in Patna, Bihar. The clip was played without muting it in which painful cries of the child begging for mercy can be heard and was shown for over 09 minutes.

4. 04-06-2022 showing the distressing gory images of the dead body of a Punjabi singer without blurring.

5. 25-05-2022 showing a disturbing incident of a man brutally beating two minor boys with a stick in Chirang district of Assam. In the video, the man can be seen mercilessly beating boys with sticks. The clip was played without blurring or muting in which the boys’ painful cries are clearly heard.

6. 16-05-2022 where a woman advocate was brutally assaulted by her neighbor in Bagalkot district of Karnataka, showing continuously without edits.

7. 04-05-2022 showing a man hacking his own sister to death in Rajapalayam, Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu.

8. 01-05-2022 about a man being hung upside down from a tree and brutally thrashed with sticks by five people in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh.

9. 12-04-2022 about an accident in which distressing visuals of five dead bodies are continuously shown without blurring.

10. 11-04-2022 about an incident where a man can be seen brutally attacking his 84-year-old mother in Kollam, Kerala, dragging his mother through the yard beating and thrashing her mercilessly shown continuously without blurring for approximately 12 minutes.

11. 07-04-2022 about a highly disturbing video of an old man setting his son ablaze in Bengaluru. The unedited footage of the old man lighting a matchstick & throwing it on his son upon which he was engulfed in flames was telecast repeatedly.

12. 22-03-2022 about a video of a 14-year-old minor boy being beaten in Morigaon district of Assam, carried without blurring or muting in which the boy can be heard crying and pleading while being beaten mercilessly.

Raising concern over such broadcast and in view of larger public interest involved and having regard to the nature of audience of television channels including elderly, women and children, the Ministry has strongly advised all private television channels to attune their systems and practices of reporting incidents of crime, accidents and violence, including death in conformity with the Programme Code.



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