Today, we participated in a stakeholder consultation that was organized by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. This was pursuant to a Delhi High Court order in the case of Rahul Bajaj v. Mythri Moviemakers dated 10th August. In the 10th August hearing, we had informed the court that while MIB has taken a number of positive measures to ensure accessibility of theatrical films for persons with disabilities, our real difficulty is with the stand taken by MEITY which is shirking away from playing a monitoring and oversight role to ensure digital accessibility, including of ticket-booking movie platforms. The Court had accordingly directed all stakeholders to have a meeting and to come out with a workable solution.
In the meeting today, we pointed out the difficulty with the argument being made by MEITY and said that legally and logically, they ought to ensure accessibility of websites and apps. We said that while they may not be able to check every website and app prior to its release for its accessibility, given the volume, they can at least issue an advisory to Apple and Google and to all ticket booking platforms to ensure that they remain accessible. And have a grievance redressal mechanism whereby MEITY can write to any platform against which a complaint comes. The MEITY representative, Mr. Santosh Pandey, disputed this position. It was his say that MEITY can only play a facilitative role. In the current era where everything is digital, it is not possible for MEITY to ensure that digital accessibility is maintained. He argued that Department of Consumer Affairs [DoCA] must play this role, with CCPD serving as the grievance redressal mechanism. He said that Secretary MEITY and Secy DEPwD have met with each other and worked out this common response which was confirmed by the DEPwD representative. DoCA was then asked to explain its view, but none was present on their behalf. We were asked if we have anything else to say, to which we began pointing out other operational points, such as absence of same language captions info on the CBFC film search database, the difficulties faced by persons with hearing impairment in accessing captions on mobile phones and absence of ISL in the mandatory compliances in the guidelines. We were asked to be brief and not to go here and there and to only make operational points and actions. We said that we will then submit our remaining suggestions via writing. Various stakeholders pointed out the difficulties being faced by them in ensuring film accessibility. These representatives were from theatre associations. They said that earlier we were asked to add AD and CC and we did that, but now this has become never-ending. It was their say that they are now being asked to ensure accessibility on OTT platforms also. They argued that regardless of the budget of the films, they are having to spend money on accessibility and are not getting any economic return but are just doing so because the law forces them to do so. They argued that ensuring same language captions in regional language content is very difficult. One representative argued that this is like asking for chicken kebab in a vegetarian restaurant. One person said that just because one person goes to court and asks for something does not mean that we will have to run here and there to provide it and the government should not impose such obligations. It was their say that the government does not give them any financial support through NFDC etc to make films accessible. One person complained about having to provide accessibility features in teasers and trailers. He said that this is going too far. Nobody from the Monitoring Committee from the PwD side – Nidhi Goyal, ALok Kejriwal or Akashdeep Bansal – was present or even if present did not submit anything. The meeting accordingly then concluded. Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef> -- Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list.. Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AccessIndia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/accessindia.org.in/d/msgid/accessindia/TYZPR06MB58087AA7B5FDDBDEE10023E5F6D82%40TYZPR06MB5808.apcprd06.prod.outlook.com.
