Shashi Shekhar Vempati appointed new CBFC chairperson

New Delhi, May 6 (PTI) Shashi Shekhar Vempati, former CEO of the Prasar Bharati, was on Wednesday appointed as the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) by the government.
    Official sources said that Vempati will succeed Prasoon Joshi, who has been appointed as the chairman of the Prasar Bharati recently.
    An alumnus of the IIT Bombay, Vempati is an author and also the co-founder of the AI4India Org, which works towards democratising access to Artificial Intelligence technology.
     "Shashi Shekhar Vempati, former CEO of the Prasar Bharati, has been appointed by the government as the chairman of the CBFC," the sources said.
    Joshi, a well-known lyricist-poet, served as the CBFC chairperson for over eight years.
    The CBFC is a statutory body under Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, regulating the public exhibition of films under the provisions of the Cinematograph Act 1952.
    Films can be publicly exhibited in India only after they have been certified by CBFC.
    The Board consists of non-official members and a chairman -- all of whom are appointed by the central government -- and functions with headquarters at Mumbai.
    It has nine regional offices, one each at Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Cuttack and Guwahati.
    The regional offices are assisted in the examination of films by advisory panels. The members of the panels are nominated by the central government by drawing people from different walks of life for a period of 2 years.
    The certification process is in accordance with The Cinematograph Act, 1952, The Cinematograph (certification) Rules, 1983, and the guidelines issued by the Central government u/s 5 (B).

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)