In a major fillip for the Northeast, the NDA government is planning to launch two more satellite television channels — each catering to a bunch of states — in 2015 to offer area-specific, round-the-clock programming in the region. This will be achieved by trifurcating the existing Northeast channel, DD North East, and launching two additional satellite TV channels. While the proposal to launch DD Arun Prabha was announced in the Modi government’s first budget, the government is also working on launching another channel — tentatively titled DD Ma-Mi-Na — in the Northeast to exclusively cater to Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland. It is likely to have its headquarters in Aizawl. DD Arun Prabha, meanwhile, will cater to Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim and is expected to have its headquarters in Itanagar. The remaining states in the region — Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura — are expected to be catered to by the existing DD North East. “For long, there has been a feeling that the aspirations and the needs of the vast and culturally diverse Northeast region have not been met by the existing DD North East channel. Since the eight states in the Northeast region follow multiple languages and dialects and have distinct cultural identities, the idea is to have TV channels in these states that talk to them in their own languages and cater to their respective cultural sensibilities,” a government official said.
