He was speaking at the function held to mark the inauguration of the Rs 9 crore Pune Doordarshan Kendra at the National Film Archives of India (NFAI) here. The Pune Kendra, located on a two acre plot near MIT College, boasts of computer-controlled KCM - 125 cameras and remote controlled 48 controlled lights.

Mahajan admitted that although he had called for a ban against Pakistan Television, it proved to be quite ineffective and warned that such a cultural invasion through the medium of television could prove to be more disastrous than AIDS.

``Doordarshan will begin a 24 hour news channel from August 15 this year,'' announced Mahajan. Earlier, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Gopinath Munde in a lighter vein complained about the exposure received by Cultural Affairs Minister Pramod Navalkar and pointed out that with the elections coming closer, a news channel by Doordarshan would be of great help. Mahajan said that the ministry was seriously looking at this concept and would bring it to fruition by Independence Day this year.

Emphasising the need for programmes with rich content instead of poor imitations of film-based programmes, Majahan lamented that India had no presence in countries while CNN and BBC had already made their mark through their news-based programmes. ``In the next five years, I will dream of a bringing an international channel in India. I have already spoken to the Russian minister and suggested that we could make a small beginning by showing channels in each other's countries,'' he remarked. The Pune Kendra, according to him, faced a major challenge of providing good content and educative programmes. Apart from films, the spate of mythological serials also pose another major problem.

The minister also hinted at the possibility of telecasting education channels focussing from Std II to Std X and maintained that this would be not be a base for promoting the saffron agenda but an attempt to provide uniform education in Maharashtra. These satellite channels could fill the major gap between convent schools and municipality schools, he observed.

Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde called for more local content in the regional news bulletins and felt that the regional languages should also be given more priority. Cultural Affairs Minister Pramod Navalkar expressed the hope that the Pune Kendra would fulfill the long felt need of Maharashtrians for good Marathi programmes and urged for a 24-hour Marathi channel.

Pune Mayor Dattatreya Gaikwad also spoke on the occasion. CEO of Prasar Bharati Rajiv Ratna Shah who hinted at the possibility of atleast five new channels hitting the small screen said that work has already begun to convert transmission to the digital as well as the analog mode to improve the quality of transmission. All Doordarshan channels will be digitalised soon, he said. Engineer-in-chief of Doordarshan B K Dey said the 9th five year plan would focus on modernising the existing network and renovating the old studios.

Meanwhile, the city Congress unit today condemned the Union government for neglecting the city MPs Suresh Kalmadi and Vitthalrao Gadgil at the official functions organised yesterday and today. Party president Mohan Joshi charged that the names of the two MPs were not even mentioned on the official invitations. The party during its meeting today said that the present BJP-led government was only a caretaker government and it has no right to hold such official functions.