Anyone other than CNN and Reuters, says CEO Prasar Bharati Corporation (PBC) K.S. Sarma. He is referring to war dispatches from Iraq, if and when America wages a war on that country.If this sounds like a major policy shift, then PBC has shifted its stand in ways more than one. Unlike the Afghanistan war when DD relied on a battery of correspondents from print and TV to send dispatches from Ground Zero, this time it has been decided to commission the war to one company.Despite internal criticism on such a move, production house Third Eye has been asked to cover the war at the cost of Rs 5 lakh for half-hour dispatches. There would be live reports from Baghdad, Kuwait, Kabul, Jerusalem and Washington. No one knows how long the war will go on, but DD has made a rough calculation of 20 days during which officials hope everything would be resolved.Explaining the reason for steering clear from aligning with US broadcasters, Director General, DD, S.Y. Quraishi said: ‘‘Western media have their own yardstick. In their scheme of things, India does not figure.’’ The programme is tentatively titled Gulf War-India Matters, India Cares and dispatches would start from Monday next.
