Thursday approved the introduction of down-linking guidelines that aim to provide better regulation of content of satellite TV channels up-linked from abroad and transmitted into India.

The new guidelines will provide a mechanism to check the antecedents and to verify the legitimacy of the owner/distributor of the channels being down-linked in India to determine the suitability of the programme seen by the Indian public, Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy told reporters after a meeting of the union cabinet.

The cabinet also approved the amendment in the Cable Television (Networks) Rules, 1994 and direct-to-home (DTH) guidelines. The amendments will ensure that only those satellite TV channels that have been registered under these guidelines are transmitted or re-transmitted through the cable networks and the DTH service.