The Indian government is considering a proposal that would prohibit foreign news channels downlinking into India from carrying any material targeted towards an Indian audience, which would hurt broadcasters like the BBC and CNN who are trying to expand into the country. The idea, spearheaded by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is to differentiate between current events programming and entertainment programming. Additionally, uplinking policy may change to allow the distribution of year-long licences to foreign news channels to uplink from India when important events occur in the country, which before had to be dealt with on an event-to-event basis.

Channels downlinking to India will be required to identify themselves and meet a number of other requirements before broadcasting is permitted.

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