Neighbouring India has decided to air state-run national TV channel BTV.
India’s state broadcaster ‘Prasar Bharati’ has decided to not only carry BTV on its DD Free Dish platform, but also to waive carriage fees for the same, its Information & Broadcasting Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday (May 7).
DD Free Dish is India's only Free Direct-To-Home (DTH) service, owned and operated by Prasar Bharati’s subsidy Doordarshan, with a reach of nearly 30 million households in the country.
The statement said, as a reciprocal gesture, a Doordarshan channel will be adopted on the soon-to-be launched DTH platform of Bangladesh.
The development came after a Bangladeshi delegation led by Gowher Rizvi, Adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, met with Amit Khare, Secretary of Information & Broadcasting Ministry along with other officials in New Delhi on Tuesday (May 7).
Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Syed Muazzem Ali was present in the meeting.


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bangladesh Delegation meets I&amp;B Ministry officials: <a href="https://t.co/M3iIyouKQe">https://t.co/M3iIyouKQe</a> <a href="https://t.co/xBmEcMmtKS">pic.twitter.com/xBmEcMmtKS</a></p>&mdash; MIB India (@MIB_India) <a href="https://twitter.com/MIB_India/status/1125721081073946624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Bangabandhu biopic
The meeting also discussed the biopic of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a co-production of which had earlier been announced by the prime ministers of both the countries, said the statement.
The movie will be directed by acclaimed filmmaker Shyam Benegal who, along with scriptwriter of the movie Atul Tiwari, was also present during the meeting.The Bangladesh delegation assured full cooperation in ensuring logistics for shooting the movie in Bangladesh, it reads.
Script writer Tiwari would travel to Bangladesh to do background research for the project – he will be assisted by Piplu Khan, noted film personality from Bangladesh.
Documentary on Liberation War
Co-production of documentary on Bangladesh Liberation War was also discussed in the meeting. It was mutually agreed that the director of the documentary would be from Bangladesh who would be assisted by a co-director from India.
Cooperation on radio
A working agreement on cooperation between All India Radio and Bangladesh Betar was also agreed upon between the two countries, implementation of which would start from this June, according to the statement.
The Indian Delegation also highlighted the strong network of Community Radio in both the countries and offered the services of Indian Institute of Mass Communication for training of Bangladesh personnel, along with exploration of sharing of content and best practises in this field, it said.