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A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

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  Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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City’s cable network moves into digital era

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Set top boxes and their official price
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UCN UCN-0146 HD with recording                                   Rs 3,000
UCN-0145 Standard Definition with recording Rs 1,350
3410 UCN1-K9 Cisco Standard Definition Rs  1,100
  PDS1000-UCN-K9 DTA Cisco Standard Definitio    Rs 650
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GTPL Cisco PDS-1000 Rs 350
Cisco 3410 Rs 750
New Land NL-C5197G Rs 750
Cisco HD 4398 DVB Rs 4,400   (with one year subscription)

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IN HD with recording Rs 1500
  Standard Definition with recording                              Rs 790
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BCN Rs 785
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Set-top boxes installed by MSO
UCN 1,56,341
IN+BCN  87,000
GTPL  14,000
(Before March 22)

Channel Package 
Channels Rate
100 Channels      Rs 100 + 45
186 Channels      Rs 160 + 45
220 Channels      Rs  245 + 45
275 Channels      Rs  265 + 45
(Rs 45 is entertainment duty)
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As deadline for the second phase of digitisation come to an end on Sunday midnight, the television sets are showing programmes only through the set-top box in Nagpur. First day of new financial year brought chaos and confusion for citizens as many local cable operators continued with analogue signals, forcing authorities to initiate action for not shifting to digital signals.Additional Collector Asha Pathan said that she had received many complaints about GTPL for not broadcasting digital signals. Hence, she served a notice to GTPL. If GTPL do not shift to digitial broadcast then, administration will start seizure of company’s property and its control room on Tuesday, she said while talking with ‘The Hitavada’.
However, Cable operators said that it would take more time to complete the mammoth task of installing set top boxes in every household. As per Government estimates, about 70-71 per cent of the digitisation target has been achieved in Nagpur. Consumer awareness and digitisation could take even more time, said a senior official.
Nagpur is among the 38 cities in the country which are going through digitisation. According to Additional Collector Asha Pathan, more than three lakh set-top boxes have been installed in the city.There are also reports that there is an urgent need of more set-top boxes in the city as some cable players are charging more money than actual cost of set-top box. While there is serious shortage of set-top boxes, over two lakh houses are yet to install the boxes.
According to officials, the operator can levy a reasonable charge from consumers towards installation of set-top box as the operator has to incur considerable amount in switching over to digitisation. The charges vary from Rs 100 to Rs 200 per box.
Ajay Khamankar, Director of UCN, said, “the demand for set-top boxes has drastically gone up in the last few days in the market. We have installed set top boxes at 70 per cent households of our old consumers.” He specifically denied shortage of set-top boxes in Nagpur.
Raju Dudhane, Director of In Cable stated that his company has installed set-top boxes in most households subscribing to their network and offered most competitive rates. The existing cable network service providers are providing 28 HD channels and more than 300 SD channels. In Cable also beams two local news channels and 10 HD channels in Marathi and Hindi. Due to this, despite alluring offers by DTH service providers, citizens are opting for local cable networks, Dudhane pointed out. Eventually, through this service even broadband internet services can be provided, he stated.
Ashutosh Kane, another director of UCN said that rates of set-top boxes has been increased after custom duty was increased by five per cent in union budget. Service station for repair of set-top box has been available with UCN, he added. UCN telecasts many local channels including local news and events.


No fudging possible with set-top box

Earlier, there were many operators who fudged the numbers of consumers. Even consumers were paying less. Many who had multiple connections were not paying for each connection. Now such fudging will not be possible. Ranjit Yadav, a resident of Rameshvari said “my family is not paying cable connection fee for the last 16 months. But now it seems that we will not be able to watch television if we do not install a set-top box.” Cable operators claimed that it will be beneficial for consumers, regulatory authorities and operators as well. Dudhane claimed that networks which are part of bigger chain like IndusIn will get better deals due to bargaining power of large operators. The situation will eventually settle-down after rates for channels are finalised between major operators and channels.

DD will continue on Antenna 

Citizens are confused over Doordarshan (DD), as some officials of district administration claimed that set-top box are needed to watch DD. Programme officer of Doordarshan, Nagpur, Nisar Khan cleared all confusion and said that DD can be watched with the good-old antenna and no set-box is required to watch DD and DD News. Khan confirmed that there is no need of set-top box to watch good quality programme of DD as DD is working for social causes.

MSO selling set-top boxes without cash receipt

Former corporator and President of Nagri Hakka Sanrakshan manch, Janardan Moon on Monday demanded probe against set-box provider companies. Addressing a press conference, Moon alleged that set-top boxes, which are installed in India, are made by Cisco, a Chinese company. He accused Multy System Operators (MSO) of selling set-top boxes without any cash receipt.



Social activist Vandana Sharma who had raised the note of exorbitant price being charged from cable subscribers has praised the authorities for releasing the official rate-list of set-top box. According to many activists, the list ought to have been released at least a month ago so that prevailing confusion and exploitation could have been avoided.
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