India News TV Goes Silent To Protest Of 'India's Daughter'

INNLIVE Media Group's 24x7 news channel 'India News TV' runs only flickering lamp during slot in which controversial film was to have been aired.

Replicating a strategy adopted by newspapers protesting press censorship during the Emergency, the India News TV news channel ran a black screen featuring only a flickering diya to express its dismay at the government's decision to halt the broadcast of the controversial documentary, India's Daughter. 

The silent screen ran for an hour from 9pm, the slot during which the documentary about the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape was to have been telecast. On Wednesday, the government decided to the halt the telecast, claiming  that the filmmaker had not obtained the proper clearances to interview one of the perpetrators of the rape, who is lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail. The government also contended that film would hurt India's image.

India News TV's gesture echoed the blank columns run in several vernacular dailies when its articles were censored during Indira Gandhi's Emergency in 1975.

The TV channel's move drew mixed reactions from social media users too.