There was also some fuss about whether Doordarshan newscasters were wearing see-through blouses. All no doubt of great importance to a highly moral person like you. But let me assure you that there are far bigger issues in the national context. And we hope you will last long enough this time to pay some attention to them.

Let us start with cinema. When Sardar Patel, our first Minister for I&B, took over, he cut off the Films Division with a rupee, because it had done anti-Indian propaganda during our fight for Independence. But it was soon back, because any Government can see the good uses to which it can be put, besides propaganda, such as educational short films for our illiterate masses. There was a time when independent producers like Chariand Sukhdev made revolutionary, socially-oriented films. There were insiders like S.S. Sastry and Pramod Pathi, who trained under the legendary Czech puppet film maker Jiri Trnka to make films which won international prizes.

But the Films Division is more or less dead. Years ago it used to win prizes in Cairo for films on growing rice. They had their uses in our rural areas. But it made two fatal mistakes. It thrust newsreels and short films on urban audiences on such subjects as dental hygiene. And they alienated cinema owners by making their showing compulsory and, to add insult to injury, on payment. Its newsreels were so sarkari that only rustics who saw our war with China on mobile projectors one year late had any use for them. With frequent TV news bulletins, the FD's newsreels became obsolete.

Our most brilliant and socially committed young short-film makers have been driven to the wall. They win international prizes but have no outlet in India. Doordarshan has done nothing to foster documentaries,avoided showing prize-winning films which won appeals in the Supreme Court and shows them at unearthly hours, as with the one-a-month programme so grudgingly conceded to the IDPA, the official documentary body. A documentary slot during reasonable hours is a must for public-service broadcasting.

The Films Division is a government set-up but it beats experts why commercial cinema should come under the I&B ministry. The film industry does not get formal status as an industry. Banks refuse loans for films. Even the best producers are driven into the arms of unscrupulous money-lenders.Not being on the Concurrent List cinema has become a state subject, leading to chaos and varying standards, disparities in entertainment tax and bizarre anomalies such as Hindi cinema coming under the control of the Maharashtra government because it is based in Mumbai. Censorship has always been a mess with old maids of both sexes, political appointments and at least one girl who said she always did what seniors on the Board toldher. The Justice Lentins are in short supply.

You could start with a long-overdue central body on film policy. With liberalisation the best films (American, of course) come from abroad. But quality Indian films, some sponsored by the NFDC, have no outlets here.

Films which won national awards have had to go abegging because NFDC failed to acquire little cinemas for the audiences which throng international festivals. Private-sector enthusiasts are bogged down by local building laws. You have a BJP Government in Delhi. Why not cut the miles of red tape which municipal corporations and others employ to stall small cinema theatres? Now that would be something, and it is within your reach. The pathetic state of our cinemas, where rats run around and filmgoers die in avoidable fires in the capital need far more attention than flying skirts.

Then look at the other institutions under I&B. Whereas in other countries internationally renowned film personalities head international film festivals (the famousItalian director Pontecorvo in Venice), here you bring in junior generalist bureaucrats who are under the thumb of everybody from deputy secretary upwards and can be sacked because a microphone failed and the joint secretary would not take the rap. No wonder our film festivals, with their Bharata Natyam and endless official speeches, have become a laughing stock. There is no lack of film experts to head the Film Festival Directorate. And the practice of changing the venue of the festival (which should on no account be a film desert like Delhi with its political and bureaucratic pressures) should be ended once and for all.

The Film and TV Institute in Pune is a perpetual mess. Gone are the days when students accepted Ritwik Ghatak as their guru and sat under that famous tree till after midnight discussing and learning film dialects. Now it is nothing but rows between students and, at times, very strange gurus. I have been both on the Governing Council and the Vice-President of the Society of the FTII andbelieve the obstacles are not insurmountable. It needs imagination, tact and, above all, vision.

As for DD under Prasar Bharati, staffers -- some bureaucratic deadwood ready to be pensioned off, others young and talented -- who have been stifled by the sarkari bogey of seniority need urgent attention rather more than the stale political points of Prasar Bharati. The news staff was humiliated over election coverage and a lot of prima donnas need to be put in their place. Only under the challenge of renewable contract jobs, rather than the ever-ever government system which has reduced government media to their sorry state, can professionalism replace bureaucracy.

One last word. One of your distinguished predecessors felt it was time the I&B Ministry itself was abolished because it has no identity except as an interfering body which puts hurdles in the path of any progress, let alone autonomy. Why not follow the British system and only retain the PIB which makes no bones about being a body to do publicityfor the government, and at the moment it does rather well. The film industry is in the private sector and should look after itself, including festivals.

These changes would have been easier when governments had two-thirds majorities. But in your government's precarious state, I can only urge you to put flying skirts out of your mind and concentrate on real priorities to take us into the 21st century.