Chopra for Doordarshan after the success of Sagar's Ramayan, will also be aired twice daily.įor lakhs of Indians who joined the country's burgeoning television audience between 1988 and the mid-1990s when privately-owned TV entertainment channels hadn't yet swallowed Doordarshan's monopoly on viewership, the full import of the government's decision, with its undeniable political overtones, may be lost. A few hours later, the public was also informed that the televised version of another Hindu epic, Mahabharat, produced by B.R. The announcement by Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar about the government's decision to have Doordarshan broadcast Ramayan twice daily – between 9-10 am and 9-10 pm – has been met with predictable applause from some quarters, possibly fuelled. Now, with the Coronavirus lockdown guaranteeing television channels a captive audience of nearly a billion Indians – as against the 650 million worldwide viewers that Sagar's TV series alone clocked over the decades if Wikipedia is to be believed – the BJP-led Union government has decided, 'on public demand', to re-telecast Ramayan.
Watch full episodes of Space City Sigma and get the latest breaking news, exclusive videos and pictures, episode recaps and much more at. It was this fascinating show which people whoever has televisions back in those days used to hook up. I remember my dad telling me abt the science fiction that used to be aired in his time and I remember this being one of those series.
Perhaps unwittingly, the TV series also acted as a catalyst for the BJP's Hindutva politics giving momentum to the then dormant Ram Janmabhumi movement by the time Sagar's 78-episode series concluded in August 1988.īlast from the Past: Space City Sigma – Doordarshan's 1989 Serial sputnik, ApMarch 11, 2014, Articles, Exclusive, Hall of Fame, 16 A strange new deadly creature has sneaked aboard the ship. Ramanand Sagar's televised version of the Hindu epic, Ramayan – first aired by public broadcaster Doordarshan in January 1987 – had changed India's still-nascent TV entertainment industry.
In a country where politics and religion are inseparable, even seemingly harmless entertainment that draws its content from religious texts can have a potent impact on the political landscape.