It has often been seen that a majority of foreign media's reportage of India is still stuck in the medieval times and hasn't evolved much as the country has evolved. In order to change this situation and the perception of people in other countries about the Indian subcontinent and its people, the Indian government is now reportedly planning to launch an official digital platform which will challenge the anti-India narrative in foreign media through hard and compelling commentary. Not only this, the platform would also be providing India's take or point of view on several important global events, something which doesn't get reported currently, neither in foreign media nor local.

Whether the platform is really aiming to achieve the aforementioned objectives or the government is simply trying to brush the criticism the Modi government and some of his programs are receiving in the foreign media under the carpet, remains to be seen.

For the first three years, the goal of the platform would be to reach somewhere between 10 million to 100 million page views a month, 1 million YouTube subscribers, and 1 million mobile app downloads.

According to a report in the ET, the idea of an official digital platform has already been approved by the Prasar Bharati Board. The committee for the same reportedly included Prasar Bharati board members Shashi Shekar Vempati and Sunil Alagh, University of San Francisco professor Vamsee Juluri, Prasar Bharati interim chief executive Rajeev Singh and Swarajya magazine editorial director R Jagannathan. The committee was headed by Prasar Bharati chairman A Surya Prakash.

Reportedly, the idea to launch a global news channel first came to the United Progressive Alliance government, but unfortunately the idea only remained an idea and never took off the ground.

"It couldn't happen earlier for whatever reason. But this is the right time to have a global media presence," Surya Prakash said in a statement to ET.

Prasar Bharati has suggested to create the digital platform through an appropriate corporate structure under the Indian Companies Act, 2013, so as to ensure both financial autonomy as well as global competitiveness. According to the report submitted by the board, the main aim of the digital platform will be to become a “global news brand for the voice of India”.

Let's see if the BJP government is able to achieve something what the UPA government couldn't get a step further from the drawing board.
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