Tatasky - Eng, Hindi, Tamil, ashtay!

I say this is business. And what Tata sky has done is an unfortunate reflection of the picture that is projected in the market. From the options listed above, it is very clear that Tata Sky thinks Hindi is the option for most of North India, and Tamil the one for most of South India.

The reason why Tata sky thinks like that stands on long standing Hindi imposition in this country that has perhaps masked several such business establishments' brains to make them think Hindi means this country! And since Tamil stands its long standing opponent from south, Tamil it is, for them in South. So Hindi and Tamil are but immediate tools in their hands to "COVER" the entire market, the entire India.

So if we Kannadigas want something for ourselves in Kannada on Tata sky, we need to make Tata Sky realise our presence, make them recognize us, speak to them in Kannada (ONLY), demand service in Kannada no matter where their call ends up in. Kannadiga customers need to make Tata sky realise the extent of market present in Kannada. They also need to understand that Kannada language holds the key to tapping this market.

-Nijavaada

Spry,

You're indeed right in saying that it is in the economics of the whole affair that a tata-sky like guy provide to people what is available. But everything here is based upon demand-supply, and excuse me, law cannot come between these two. That would be disruptive polity, and unwelcome! Soon that'll be gone.

In the meanwhile it is going to be the efforts Tata sky puts in searching for multilingual content which is going to tell whether they survive in this market or not. In this light it is true indeed that Tata sky need not break its head over generating content in Kannada, but the task cut out for the people of Karnataka, is to pose demands for content in Kannada.

Now I am not exactly saying demand for Star Utsav in Kannada! Hardly a necessity! Instead I might ask for Star Sports, Ten Sports, ESPN, DD Sports and the likes, or lets say HBO, Star Movies etc. in Kannada. Makes me recollect how sad it sounded when there were two guys giving running commentary of the Beijing olympics telecast - in English and Hindi - what image does DD want to project here? It can hire a guy who can speak Hindi, but not people who speak other languages? So much for a national channel, eh!?

If you see carefully, the content that all these cable-channels telecast are customized to each country/region. The essence of the demand we need to make here is tomorrow, we need all these channels to further customize their content to each language present in India, and not just divide the entire nation as Hindi and Tamil! And what I said was if we dont demand this today, we'll get only that divide tomorrow. And since Tata sky is your distributor, they're who you can/should ask. Period.

-Nijavaada

One more point I missed in my last post is that since our state law does not allow dubbing of TV programmes in Kannada, we see cartoon programmes dubbed in other regional language except kannada. For many kids Micky Mouse and many other famous cartoon characters are bigger super star than Ganesha/Upendra and when they find that their famous cartoon characters can not speak their language but can speak in Hindi/Tamil/Telugu/English, there is bound to have some alienation for kannada in their adolescent mind. Need of the hour is to change the state law and make all these programms dubbed in kannada for our younger generation.

Nothing need to be said about DD commentry as even Hindi population does not listen to them. We can't expect better things from lethargic governemt setup. Better they dont start commentry in Kannada as it will do more harm than anything else.

I don't agree that ESPN, Start Sports programmes should be dubbed in Kannada, better have an option for kannada commentry as there are large population which likes things in originality. I don't appreciate if Harsha Bhogle, Sunil Gavasker's commentry are dubbed and telecasted for us instead of their original english commentry. May be we can promote kanndiga commentry by kannada circketers like Srinath n Kumble but even they would love their voice to be heard by bigger audiences so they might prefer english over kannada.

South package for DTH is nothing but a legacy which comes from cable distribution company where they have single plan for all the south indian channels. You pay Rs 200-300 and have all the channels in all the language. May be once they feel the need and their market research suggets that Kannada population does not watch telugu/tamil/hindi channels, may be they can come up with kannada specific packages. My feeling is that here people love to watch telugu/tamil/hindi channels apart from regular kannada channels. Would love be proved wrong here.

Thanks,

I saw digital cable in few homes. It is an add on box which can be bought for 500 rupees. Quality is good with stereo sound, same interface like Tata Sky with menus. All the channels offered by cable operator comes in the quality of tata sky.

There is no headache to maintain the dish on top of home and do a seperate wiring for the dish. Cable operator doesn't charge anything extra. We can buy this digital box anywhere like SP Road.

RS,

At least some others who have taken interest in commenting upon this matter here in Praja thought Kannada is a necessity in this community and services offered in other languages, and not offered in Kannada inside Bengaluru (and Karnataka as a whole) is the same as absence of a vital infrastructure in essence.

Now you're the one talking about imposition of a select few languages upon a people - that apparently dont speak these languages. On the other hand, but in the same pitch, the opinion that should arise out of this whole discussion is - that language has to be Kannada - the one and only one that can bind the entire of Bengaluru, and retain it with the rest of Karnataka. Bringing/Enforcing any policy (of your fancied nature) in Bengaluru could as well jeopardize the link between Bengaluru and the rest of Karnataka. Because the entire state (built on linguistic grounds) behaves and lives in one way, and Bengaluru (as imagined by a certain people living in it) will tread a different route! This shouldnt happen - and I guess Praja can play a valuable role in making sure this doesnt happen. Being called Praja, many here feel it has to play this role.

-Nijavaada