Out of the several “Vision” statements included in the budget proposal of 2019-20, one particular proposal which attracts the attention is the proposal to start a television program exclusively for the start ups.
Naavi.org has been engaged in “Awareness Building” on Cyber Law Compliance since 1998 and with the enactment of the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), there will be more of such awareness activities that needs to be done. This objective of Naavi.org which has been carried over to the organizations like the FDPPI (Foundation of Data Protection Professionals in India” now may have an additional tool to reach out to people through this very unexpected budget proposal namely “Start UP TV of India”.
This Channel is supposed to be started as part of the Doordarshan Boquet and is expected to serve as a platform for promoting start-ups, discussing issues affecting their growth, matchmaking with venture capitalists and for funding and tax planning.
In as much as “Start Up” is a business venture, the entire business domain will come under the scope of this TV. It could be the CNBC TV or ET News without the stock market noise.
I have in the past discussed with some channels about programs on Cyber Security but most of them have felt that the “TRP” for such programs may not be attractive. So, the proposal of “Start Up TV of India” will also face the challenge of commercial viability which needs to be efficiently handled.
It is not clear if this TV will run under the guidance of the Ministry of IT or Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Mrs Nirmala Seetharaman stated that the channel will be designed and executed by start-ups themselves.
We donot know if there has already been some discussions in this regard and some body has been assigned the responsibility for the same.
It is however interesting to know how this idea develops in the coming days.
Naavi
