The BBC has handed over its newsroom publishing licence in India to a personal restricted firm, Collective Newsroom – a primary for the general public service broadcaster’s world operations wherever on the planet. The transfer comes a yr after searches at its workplaces by the Income Tax division.

Collective Newsroom, based by 4 former BBC staff, will begin its operations from April 10. An entirely India-based firm, it should produce content material for the BBC’s digital companies in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu. 

As per the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Collective Newsroom Private Limited was integrated on October 27 final yr.

“We are not exclusively signed up with the BBC. The BBC is our first client. We have a production agreement with the BBC, and we will be producing content for the BBC across its six different language services and India’s English YouTube channel,” Rupa Jha, Chief Executive Officer of the Collective Newsroom, instructed NDTV.

“We will keep the BBC Editorial Guidelines in mind when producing content for them, such as the kind of journalism the BBC practices. Upholding the trust in the BBC brand is our responsibility to carry forward.

“What we are going to do will probably be utterly aligned with the journalistic values of the BBC. We think about the BBC, and the BBC has religion in us; that’s the reason we’re enterprise all of this. We should conduct journalism that may be trusted,” she said.

The restructuring was prompted by the new Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rules, which were introduced in 2020, that imposed a 26% FDI limit in India’s digital media sector.

Companies exceeding the 26% FDI limit were required to reduce their foreign investment to comply with this regulation by October 2021.

99.99% of BBC World Service India’s shares are owned by its UK-based public broadcaster.

The BBC has sought a 26% stake in its recently established Collective Newsroom company, a source told NDTV.

“There had been quite a few choices earlier than us. Considering that the BBC did not need to lose its presence in India or lower jobs, they usually did not need it to turn out to be financially unviable, this compelled us to suppose out of the field. Based on the authorized recommendation the BBC was receiving, everybody was veering in direction of this because the viable choice (of establishing the Collective),” Ms Jha was quoted saying by The Indian Express. 

Tax searches had been carried out on the BBC’s Delhi and Mumbai workplaces in February final yr after it aired a controversial two-part sequence titled ‘India: The Modi Question’ that featured the 2002 Gujarat riots.