NEW DELHI, 3 September 2004 — Hindi news channel India TV signed a deal yesterday with Al-Jazeera to bring the best of the Arab satellite television station to subcontinental viewers.
The Qatar-based channel hailed the accord to share news bulletins as an important step in improving its coverage of India.
“It is important for Al-Jazeera to have strong ties with India ... and to have strong presence here,” said Managing Director Wadah Khanfar.
Khanfar linked the signing of the agreement to significant relations between the Arab world and India. He said: “India holds an important audience base for us and this agreement will enable us to provide India with news about the Arab world and vice versa. We have a mandate of extending and enhancing professional relationships with international media.”
However, plans for Al-Jazeera to open a bureau in India, which has been critical of the Arabic-language station’s coverage of Kashmir, remain on hold pending accreditation from the government.
India TV, a round-the-clock Hindi news channel launched in May, will from 11 a.m. today begin broadcasting a daily Al-Jazeera bulletin dubbed into Hindi, chairman Rajat Sharma told a press conference.
Referring to the vacuum in the Indian media regarding news from the Arab world, Sharma said: “By signing this agreement with Al-Jazeera, alongside providing in-depth and composite international news to our viewers, India TV will also provide an additional picture of events and current affairs in the Arab world to our viewers in India.”
Meanwhile, the Al-Jazeera network plans to launch an English-language news channel by the end of next year to counteract what it says is unbalanced reporting from Western networks like CNN and the BBC.
“We believe there’s a gap in the market,” said Nigel Parsons, the London-based managing editor of Al-Jazeera International. “For all stories there are two sides to the argument, and we’re not getting both sides.”
