The continued mutual praise between West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee continued to enthuse Bengali newspapers. And Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's irritation over it added spice to news items. Bengali dailies sensitive to affairs in neighbouring Bangladesh also gave prominent coverage to the BDR attacks in Dhaka.

The bonhomie between the Congress and the Left began at a function in Kolkata last Sunday when Mukherjee, in the presence of Bhattacharjee, criticised Mamata's movement against industrialisation in the state.

15% agency commission on govt ads waived

10% increase in DAVP rates

The government is announcing sops for the media sector in phases, ahead of general elections. While the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry had earlier this month announced abolition of customs duty on newsprint, it has now waived the agency commission on DAVP (Directorate General of Audio Visual Publicity) advertisements, and also increased ad rates.

The ongoing BCCI-Sony controversy, over sponsorship deals for IPL matches, paves a way for resignation of Sony Entertainment CEO, Kunal Dasgupta. BCCI, while tightening noose around Sony, also threatened to terminate the broadcaster's IPL rights if its losses are not met by the broadcaster. BCCI believes that deal of Airtel with Sony is the main reason for walked out of Reliance-ADAG, leading large scale revenue loss to the cricket control body.

A joint study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and KPMG estimated that the media and entertainment industry will grow at 12.5 percent over the next five years to cross the Rs 1,00,000-crore mark by 2013. The report showed that it grew 15 percent annually since 2006 into an $11.68-billion industry in
2008.

The Study says: "In many ways, 2008 was a testing time for the industry. With the global economic slowdown affecting advertising spends, sectors like TV, print, radio and outdoor that depend on advertising revenues were affected."

Taipei  - Hong Kong's English-language daily the South China Morning Post plans to launch a bilingual newspaper in Taiwan in response to growing ties between China and Taiwan, a newspaper said on Sunday.

According to the Economic Daily News, the South China Morning Post plans to hire several economic and finance experts as it prepares to launch a Taiwan edition.

In a significant move, Sri Lanka Cricket has announced that it has granted the worldwide rights to broadcast India's upcoming cricket tour of Sri Lanka to the Nimbus Sports International. The Singapore-headquartered global sports management company will also be producing the television coverage for the series which will be broadcast worldwide. Neo Cricket will air these matches.