The government is likely to set up a high-power group to revise the four-month-old policy on foreign news channels uplinking from India. This is to ensure that uplinking rules are not violated and the 26 per cent foreign equity cap is not breached.

The decision to revise and revisit the uplinking policy was decided at a meeting at Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's residence on Saturday.

Besides Vajpayee, the meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, Law Minister Arun Jaitley, National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra and Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The high-power panel will have representation from the information and broadcasting ministry as well as other ministries like law, company affairs, finance and home.

It was decided that consultations will be held among the ministries of information and broadcasting, law, company affairs and, if necessary, finance to revise the guidelines on uplinking to ensure strict compliance of the foreign equity clause by channels "in letter and spirit".

This comes after the government sought explanation from Star TV on its application for uplinking its 24-hours news channel from India. Star TV said it was yet to get the fresh set of questions from the government and would provide information after that. Star has already answered to some of the earlier queries by the government on its application to uplink from India.

"This is to work out a structure that offers a level playing field which is non-discriminatory to television channels in the tax structure," Prasad said in New Delhi.

The government has asked Star TV to explain how Media Content and Communications Services India Ltd, floated by Star to meet the guidelines on uplinking, could make huge payments running into crores of rupees from a meagre capital base of Rs 100,000 and how shareholders other than Star do not have adequate representation on the board.

Six Indian broadcasters, including Aaj Tak, Eenadu, NDTV, Sahara, Sun and Sabe, in a joint statement on Friday urged the government to provide a level playing field to domestic channels and expressed concern over certain foreign broadcasters "bypassing" the laid down procedures and guidelines.

The information and broadcasting ministry is understood to have sought clarification from Star TV on the shareholding pattern proposed in its application seeking permission to uplink its news channel from India.

The group floated Media Content and Communication Services Ltd with an equity base of only Rs 100,000 and offloaded 74 per cent stake in its news operations to resident Indians to abide by the government's guidelines on foreign news channels uplinking from Indian soil. The government has been giving temporary permission to Star to uplink its news channel from India since June 26.