NEW DELHI: Star India CEO Uday Shankar has been appointed the new Chairman of FICCI?s Media & Entertainment Committee.

This position was earlier held by legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra, who passed away this year in October. Shankar will be supported by Ramesh Sippy and Karan Johar as the Co-Chair of the Committee.

Shankar has been the Chairman of the FICCI Broadcast Forum, and led the Forum on some seminal work towards broadcast digitisation along with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Multi Screen Media CEO Man Jit Singh will now be the new Chairman of the Broadcast Forum.

The FICCI Entertainment Committee has been working closely with the government on behalf of industry stakeholders for the past decade and has been responsible for achieving major milestones for the industry such as the accordance of ?industry? status to the Indian film sector; income tax rebate to the extent of 50 per cent on book profits to the multiplexes; tax holiday for five years by some state governments to give concessions or exemptions from payment of entertainment tax; spearheading the second phase of privatisation of FM Radio broadcast policy; submitting a definitive TRP report to review and recommend robust system of measurement of TRP; working with the Ministry to define roadmap and solve policy issues relating to animation, gaming , VFX and comic industry (AVGC); towards complete digitisation; forming a Sector Skills Council with NSDC to focus on skill development in the media sector, among others.

In a statement, FICCI said it looks towards Shankar?s vision, rich and varied experience and deft leadership to take the formidable Indian media and entertainment industry to newer heights.

On taking over as the Chairmanship, Shankar said that he would work with all industry stakeholders closely to formulate an agenda for sustained growth of the burgeoning entertainment sector and keep up regular and meaningful dialogue with policy makers.

NEW DELHI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Rahul Khullar has said Trai was making efforts to move towards a lighter regulatory regime.

Khullar also said that India urgently needed a new convergence law for the industry to consolidate. As technology was advancing at a rapid pace, there is a need to respond to it accordingly and encourage use of new devices and technologies.

Also, it is imperative to create opportunities for providers of value added services and create for them an environment that is conducive for them to operate and grow.

Khullar pointed out that a lighter regulatory regime would take time "as there is legal ambiguity which needs to be dealt with and then trust has to be built."

"A regulator?s job is not to formulate radical policies. He responds to the policy framework provided by the Government, responds to the changes in market conditions and responds to the changes in technologies," he said.

On enforcement of regulation, Khullar said that if a regulation is implemented, he would ensure that it is enforced as well. at the session on ?Regulatory The Trai chairman felt now is the time for industries which are on the downside to look for opportunities in other sectors. The market should open itself to mergers and acquisitions and spectrum trading, he said.

Speaking on ?Enabling stakeholders consolidation towards sustainable growth?, Nikolai Dobberstein, partner - communications, media & technology practice at A T Kearney said the telecom industry holds a debt of Rs 1,860 billion and it was time for some operators to exit. In the aviation industry, Kingfisher had to face the option of either exiting the market or infusing capital. The telecom sector is also heading the same way, he said.

Dobberstein opined that spectrum should be made available easily including 3G and 4G and no constraints should be on acquisition of any spectrum. The government could also consider privatisation of MTNL and BSNL. He added that the National Telecom Policy - 2012 is a forward looking policy and it can take telecom to the next level if implemented successfully. He was speaking at the India Telecom 2012 conference, organised by FICCI in association with the Department of Telecommunications in the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology.

On ?Regulation to foster business environment and stimulate investment?, Suhail Nathani, partner at Economic Laws Practice, highlighted the opportunities in the world of internet. Internet contributes $30 billion to GDP and is projected to contribute $100 billion by 2015. Today, there are 120 million internet users and this number is estimated to reach half a billion by 2015.

To attract investments, the complexity in obtaining licenses needs to be reduced. Reduction in legal ambiguity in copyright laws and a strong underlying legal system for contractual enforcement is a must. Also, clarity in tax laws and a robust and consistent enforcement mechanism is required, said Nathani.

Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior policy analyst at Google, speaking on ?Regulatory Frameworks in the Internet Age?, remarked, "On internet, more than 76 hours of videos are uploaded per hour and 90 per cent of it becomes online within a minute and is accessible to everyone around the world. This shows how powerful internet is as a medium to share information and knowledge."

Chima said there is a need to promote broadband, meaningful access to the internet, increase bandwidth, connectivity and quality of services and must fulfill consumers? interest and win users? trust. Also, use of new technology must be encouraged and should promote entrepreneurship.

MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) has earmarked an outlay of Rs 20 million for carrying out an anti-piracy initiative in the audio-visual sector under the 12th 5-year plan from 2012-17.

Piracy continues to be a key challenge for the Indian film sector and has been a prime reason for decline of Home Video market in India. It is estimated by the FICCI-KPMG report for 2011 that the piracy market accounts for 600-700 million unit sales of DVDs each year with more than 10000 vendors operating in illegitimate DVD market. With increased competition within this sector, prices of pirated DVDs are declining as compared to previous years.

Another new emerging threat to legitimate exhibition of films is illegal download of films available on websites. The magnitude of this problem is set to increase in the coming years, given the expansion and availability of broadband infrastructure.

While digital technology on the one hand plays a significant role in accessibility of content across various new media platforms, the film sector faces a massive challenge of grappling with pirated software on web-based platforms in the current Indian environment where mechanisms for regulation of content on the Internet are non-existent.

According to the MIB, the money from piracy goes towards funding anti-national activities which makes the government intervention necessary. Hence, it has been envisaged to spread an awareness campaign against piracy in collaboration with stakeholders like business chambers, schools, and colleges.

Some of the major activities planned are as follows:
(a) Campaign on piracy through audio-visual, internet and print media;

(b) A dedicated web portal;

(c) Training programmes and workshops to sensitize police, judicial, administrative officials, multiplex and cinema hall owners about the Copyright Act;

(d) Conduct research on effects of piracy and develop public-private strategies to combat piracy;

(e) Production of a film/documentary;

(f) Efforts at inclusion of anti-piracy awareness material in the curriculum of the schools and colleges;

(g) Road shows/Street Plays for creating awareness;

(h) Programme in Schools & Colleges: Debate/Essay competition;

The planned activities will be implemented in collaboration with Business Chambers and NGOs, wherever possible.

NEW DELHI: Even as the Sports Ministry has identified focus disciplines such as hockey, wrestling, athletics and boxing in which the country can train sportspersons and win medals in international sporting events, FICCI is leading from the front to get ‘Industry‘ status to sports. Such a status would lead to flow of funds into sports and lead to innovation in sports technology.

These government and FICCI initiatives were unveiled here today at the inaugural session of the two-day ‘TURF 2012‘, 4th Global Sports Summit.

Addressing the summit, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Sports Sukhbir Singh Badal said, "We do not have a plan or target for sports and it is not a priority in our country. There is no sense of security attached to a career in sports. We first need to change the mindset and see sports as a lucrative and successful full-time career option. To encourage students and parents, we must recognise sports as a worthwhile activity."

"In Punjab, we plan to open sports schools in all districts in the next three years. Also, Punjab Sports Institute is in the pipeline and is expected to be ready in three years. The institute will be armed with world-class facilities and we plan to have joint ventures with international players who will train and coach our children. We believe that for a sportsperson to compete on the world stage, he or she requires minimum 10,000 hours of training. Hence, we need to identify talent at the early age of six or seven years, so that by the time they attain the age of 17 years he or she is competent to face the competition at the world stage," remarked Badal.

On the occasion, FICCI-SkillsActive-Tanjun Associate report on ‘Institutional Capacity Building (Sports and Physical Activities), FICCI-Libero Sports India report on ‘Foreign Investments in Indian Football‘ and FICCI-Winning Matters report on ‘Enabling National Sports Federation and Industry Engagement‘ were released by Badal.

The state of sports in the country can be best adjudged by the astounding figures revealed in the FICCI-SkillsActive-Tanjun Associate report. Among those who pursue sports education in the form of Bachelors and Masters degree in Physical Education as high as 85 per cent of them are unable to pursue a career in sports because of lack of required skills, facilities for higher learning, global exposure and non-availability of options other than teaching physical education at primary or secondary levels.

No less than 39,150 students obtain Bachelors degree and 3030 students a Masters degree in Physical Education from 783 registered institutions in the organised sector in India. Close to 7,000 more colleges at current rates will be needed if we need to meet the goal of 0.3 million sports support personnel by 2017. Alternatively all passing students from existing colleges will need to be shown sustainable careers in sporting fields to hold them from drifting into other professions.

Justice Mukul Mudgal (Retd), Chief Justice, Haryana and Punjab High Court, remarked, "India hosted the Commonwealth Games and it proved that we have the capability to build sports infrastructure. We must aim for best practices, Public-Private Partnerships, legacy planning and ensure that the positives and negatives outcomes are all translated into action. Also, more coordination is must amongst ministries, federation and industry for all to benefit."

Onkar Kedia, Joint Secretary, Sports, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, underlined the fact that at present India‘s expenditure on sports is a mere two per cent and the per capita expenditure is two paisa per day. "If we want to make our presence felt in the international arena then this percentage must rise to five," he added.

"We need to change the sporting culture in the country and encourage students to take up sports as a career. The Government is also helping elite sportspersons like P T Usha to set up training academies. It is time that we join hands with the private sector and set up sports institutes," Kedia said.

FICCI President R V Kanoria pointed out that FICCI is India‘s only apex chamber of commerce with a dedicated sports division and full time sports experts. "In our constant endeavor to support government in policy reforms, FICCI represented to the government on granting industry status to sports sector," he said.

"One of the biggest difficulties in sports is non-availability of data and documented knowledge related to sports. Also, there is no budgetary support to provide research and development support in sports. Bridging this knowledge gap is the first and foremost exercise that we should undertake. It is important to collect data related to different sports, athletes, there classification in to different training groups based on their performance, their sport, coaches, and support system. This is in addition to need of mapping sports infrastructure across India which indeed is a challenge considering multiplicity of authorities e.g. states, SAI, Federations, states, ministry of HRD, Defense, railways and so on," explained Kanoria.

"Based on our constant interactions with experts from the government, academia, athletes, media, and sports fraternity in India and internationally. The focus areas for TURF 2012 is: legacy planning of sports infrastructure; institutional capacity building; Soccer development and sustainable investment in sports: creating value for all," said FICCI Sports Committee chairman and ESPN Software India MD Aloke Malik..

He added, "With the already identified need for more meticulously planned development and maintenance of sports infrastructure in the country, the significance of involving private sector is top of the agenda in the TURF. The Government is providing policy support with initiatives like ‘Come and Play scheme‘, contributing the land, and inviting private sector to adapt SAI centers. Here we would be deliberating on how industry can partner with the Government for proficiency in design, development, operation and maintenance of sports infrastructure so that it is a win-win situation for all the sides - Government, National Sports Federations, Industry."

Sanjiv Paul, Co-chairman, FICCI Sports Committee & Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel, said, "At present, due to knowledge gaps, the very absence of institutional capacity building, entrepreneurship, factor of production and finances in sports the multiplier effects due to these inter-linkages has not reached its optimal potential in India and bridging this knowledge gap will help us perform better on all these indicators as they say, ‘when you know better you do better‘."

Shooting and Boxing are India‘s top Olympic sports

FICCI, in association with Winning Matters Consulting Private Limited has initiated a first-of-its-kind assessment/ research study towards enabling a stronger and more structured engagement between the Indian Industry and the National Sports Federations (NSFs).

In recognition that despite India‘s historic performances at the recent London Olympic Games a lot needs to be done towards enabling India‘s true sporting potential, FICCI and Winning Matters Consulting this year focused on assessing and enabling National Sports Federations (NSFs) towards facilitating Industry engagement. Keeping this in mind, a research study titled "Enabling National Sports Federations and Industry Engagement" has been prepared for the FICCI Global Sports Summit.

To start with, the Study looks into the sports performance assessment of 21 Olympic sports (20 Individual sports with Hockey being the only teamsport) based on their medal winning performances at major multi-sport events between 2008 and 2012 using the Sports Performance Index (SPITM) for benchmarking them. As the medal distribution and domination of a country varies between sports, a Normalization Coefficient has been introduced to reduce the bias.

The top 5 sports based on their Normalized SPI scores are: Shooting, Boxing, Wrestling, Archery and Athletics respectively. It is worth noting, that while Shooting is the undisputed leader among other sports within India, it has only been able to capture 26.54% of the SPI score when benchmarked with top countries in Shooting; the only sport that outshines Shooting in that respect is Boxing which has been able to capture 36.01% of the SPI score when benchmarked with top countries in Boxing.

Keeping in mind that in today‘s time and age websites are a key communication platform for information assimilation and dissemination toward building the confidence of the key stakeholders - participants, consumers and investors - the study looks at the websites of top NSFs around the world - with a focus on the USA, Great Britain and Australia - to learn what they do to enable greater participation, support top talent and engage / leverage the associations with sponsors and partners. In the Indian context, it was noted that the NSF websites of the Wrestling Federation of India, National Rifle Association of India and Badminton Association of India have the most information amongst the21 NSFs, but still have roughly only 50% of the information when benchmarked with some of the top NSF websites.

In the backdrop of this study, a detailed NSF questionnaire cum self-assessment form looking at Performance; Participation; Events; Funding, Sponsorships and Marketing; Administration/Governance, along with a proprietary software tool has been developed by Winning Matters Consulting incorporating global best practices. The Study ends with an abridged version of the questionnaire with a brief summary report which includes a snapshot of the qualitative analysis done on the self-assessment provided by one of the NSFs.