The Doordarshan circus

The Prasar Bharati Board is a hilarious arena to watch the great circus of its officers. It appears that Prakash Javadekar, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, is completely dependent on the advice of professionally untrained and incompetent advisers and is still not able to make out who should run this highly technical and sensitive department. The top name in circulation is that of an officer on deputation, ADG (Ops) Ranjan Mukherjee, who is trying to get the coveted post of member (personnel) of the Board. According to informed sources, others in the fray include the DG of DD News, Archana Dutta, who is set to retire on October 31 and who has already appeared in an interview for the post of CEO of Lok Sabha TV along with ADG Mayank Agarwal on September 30, had been lobbying hard for the post. Mukherjee is the latest entrant in the fray. A 1983-batch Indian Air Force officer and recipient of the Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM), Mukherjee joined Prasar Bharati on July 9 after having completed seven years of deputation with the DDA and being OSD to former Lt. Governor, Tejinder Khanna. Mukherjee is known to be close to Javadekar and played an important role in getting an extension for Brig VAM Hussain for three months on August 14, even as many eyebrows were raised. Brig (retd) Hussain was made Adviser (Personnel and Administration) to the Prasar Bharati Board. Sources say, even the posting of Mukherjee as ADG was odd given that he had served for seven years under the UPA dispensation. The Modi regime took more than 100 days to appoint the PS to the Law and HRD Ministers, there were no questions raised over Mukherjee. He has already found a supporter in the Prasar Bharati CEO, Jawhar Sircar. Meanwhile, the Prasar Bharati Board is more or less defunct with only part-time member Muzaffar Ali performed perfunctory duty for Sircar. Is this the way Javadekar wants to run Doordarshan?

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