NEW DELHI: Addressing the members of the Press Advisory Committee and Press Correspondents Advisory Committee at the Plaza who were invited this morning [Aug 7] to see a few of the films which the Government of India have recently made, Sir Sultan Ahmed, Member, Information and Broadcasting Department said:

…[A] short time ago Government issued a new Defence Rule under the Defence of India Act making it compulsory … for each cinema exhibitor to show at each performance two thousand feet of film approved by my Department. The reason for this was principally that we had been told quite clearly that unless a proportion of the raw film stock supplied to India were used to further the war effort of the United Nations we would get none at all. But that was not the whole reason, for at the time we were conscious that possibly the most powerful instrument of all for strengthening India’s Home Front was not being utilised nearly as fully as it might be. And so, the new Defence Rule was issued with the two-fold purpose of justifying the supply of raw film to India … and of utilising … the most satisfactory means of conveying to our people the … encouragement so essential for the maintenance of civil morale in war.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2018