The phenomenal growth in the Indian media industry has largely been powered by the private sector, according to Mr Tarun Basu, the Chief Editor of Indo Asian News Services.

  Speaking with  newsmen in New Delhi on Monday on the sidelines of a “Special Training Programme for Journalists from Africa,’’ Basu pointed out that India had more than 80,000 newspapers and 600 television channels, the bulk of which are private.

   He said the greatest growth had been in television, adding that the majority of the 600 stations operated in local languages and that about 50 per cent of them operate round-the-clock.

“In India, television greatly influences public policy and discourse, the television is no respecter of personalities. It grills even the prime minister,’’ he said.

Basu said that while the Indian government had ensured that there was no threat to freedom of expression, the private sector had invested heavily in mass media technology, especially in the past 20 years.

He said that the Indian government had been an enabler, pointing out that without its support, the private sector would not have made a head way in its media investment.

“More and more entrepreneurs are still willing to invest in the mass media and these people do not necessarily have media background,’’ he said.

He called on African countries to take a cue from India and get interested in developing their media sub-sector.

“I will gladly say that out of 1.2 billion people in India, majority of them cannot escape the influence of the media because we have enough channels to reach the people, both in our local languages and in English, and so the media is part of every body’s life,’’ he said.