Union Budget Live On The Internet
India-on-Internet (IOI), a joint venture between Calcutta-based Vedika International and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, has entered into a collaborative arrangement with TV Today to host the Union Budget 1997 live on Internet on February 28.
The Budget website India Budget 97 will offer value-added information on the Union Budget and can be accessed at the web address http://budget.allindia.com.
With the departure of Prannoy Roy, the archetypal budget analyst on Doordarshan, to Hong Kong-based rival Star TV, Doordarshan has signed a production-contract with Living Medias TV Today to present the Budget programme on television.
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The budget module on Doordarshan will consist of a live telecast of the budget speech by Union finance minister P Chidambaram. This will be followed by a panel discussion with him, finance secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia and eminent industry leaders like Anil Ambani, managing director of Reliance Industries, Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons and Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto.
India-on-Internet, involved in home page development and web-publishing, will transcribe the finance ministers budget speech into the web site within five minutes after the speech is completed.
There will be updates on budget highlights every five minutes while the budget is presented on the floor of the Parliament.
There will also be real audio broadcast over the Internet, like last year, for net surfers not covered by the satellite footprint of Doordarshan and enjoying multi-media facilities.
Arvind Agarwalla, Singapore-based CEO of Vedika International, says IOI s objective of `taking India to the world ... bringing the world to India has now spread its notion to `taking the budget to the world. Besides the Budget speech and results of the opinion poll conducted by TV-Today before the budget, the site will offer value-added services like pre- and post-budget calculation of taxes to be paid.