Doordarshan sets date for UK launch

State broadcaster of India, Doordarshan, is finally heading to the UK shores after many delays.

The two channels, which will be beamed into million of homes are DD India and DD News.

DD India was previously was known as DD World before the name changed in 2002.The programming offers international viewers an update on the Indian social, cultural, political and economic scene.

The channel will broadcast general entertainment shows, along with news, current affairs and shows on tourism and events here in the UK and abroad.

The channel will be multi-lingual broadcasting in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi. It will be the first channel in the UK to broadcast shows in such a vast range of languages.

DD India’s launch in the UK will be accompanied by DD News. Launched back in 2003, the channel broadcasts in both Hindi and English. DD News will stream live directly from India.

Both channels will be available on the Sky Digital platform from Monday 16th April. They will be distributed by London’s Rayat Group. The broadcaster had earlier planned to launch on 26th January to coincide with India’s Republic Day. These plans however were scrapped due to Sky’s long cue in dishing out EPG numbers.