Harvest TV and its birthing troubles

Harvest Television Network Private Limited is headed by Bibi George Chacko, a devout Malayali Christian, who fashions himself as a “harvester for the Lord Jesus Christ”. Seated nervously across the table at the YMCA Tourist Hotel in Delhi, he has with him a black leather bag full of documents and a frown that gives away anxiety and unease.

“I was saved in 2004. Before that, I was not a spiritual man. I was in a secular mould,” he says.

According to the channel’s website, Harvest TV is telecast in India, the US and the Middle East. “We are a spiritual channel and we have no political agenda. We don’t have money or power. We don’t want to trouble anyone and nor do we want any trouble. We don’t take any money or donation. Our only revenue is servicing the church.” Which church? The Pentecostal Church of Kerala, he says, to which Harvest TV sells 55-60 per cent of its prime-time television slots.

Given his background in production and media, Chacko started Harvest TV as a cable TV channel in 2011 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. “By God’s grace, it was going well, and then we were approached by Planetcast.” According to Chacko, Planetcast, a satellite teleport service provider, helped Chacko find a company with a TV licence. By 2013, Harvest TV had started telecasting on various DTH networks.

The licence in question was owned by Sunny Entertainments House Private Limited, a company dealing in motion picture, radio and television based in Haryana. The I&B Ministry’s website confirms this.

“It was very good for us. But suddenly, they had financial issues and they threatened to remove us and vacate the licence,” Chacko says. After a two-year partnership with Sunny Entertainments, Harvest TV was asked to move on. According to Chacko, Planetcast intervened once again in 2015 and put him in touch with Delhi-based Veecon Media and Broadcasting Pvt Ltd.

Enter Veecon

On December 25, 2015, Chacko’s Harvest TV served a “Letter of Authority-cum-No Objection” to Veecon Media. It reads: “We hereby authorize M/s Veecon Media and Broadcasting Private Limited … to use our trademark, logo ‘HARVEST TV’ for and in connection with the channel ‘HARVEST TV’, and we have no objection whatsoever.” The letter clarifies that it “shall be valid for a period of 2 years from the date of signing hereof”.

Chacko eagerly directs me to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Veecon and his company. With a monthly payment of ₹2.5 lakh to Veecon media, the MoU states that Veecon “has the rights of operating a T.V. Channel under the name and style of Harvest TV and is exclusively entitled to broadcast and market the channel and no one else has rights with respect to same”. The document says: “Whereas Harvest is engaged in marketing television air time and development of contents.” 

According to the MoU, the channel was to be marketed in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with Chacko having the right to “give directions to cover News/Stories through stringers, reporters and bureau chief of the First Party [Veecon], which shall be telecasted by the First Party after approval from the Channels Editorial Team.”

But what did a self-proclaimed Malayali Christian news channel gain from telecasts in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar? Chacko says that the portion in the MoU mentioning the two states does not matter. According to him, Harvest TV under Veecon was telecast all over India. The MoU’s purpose was to simply state the sum that Chacko’s channel owed Veecon Media every month. “The rest of it is a copy-paste of their previous agreement,” he says.

Rohit Rohan, CEO of Veecon Media, denies that such an MoU was ever signed. However, in the emails exchanged between Chacko and Rohit accessed by Newslaundry, Rohan offers no denial when Chacko brings up the MoU. When asked about the authenticity of Chacko’s “Letter of Authority-cum-No Objection”, Rohan’s response is a terse “maybe”.

However, Rohan does state that Chacko’s Harvest TV issued a No Objection Certificate (NOC) allowing for the use of the “Harvest TV” name and logo. To cement his case, he furnishes a letter (dated July 5, 2016) from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which states that it accepts Veecon’s request for a new channel named “Harvest TV” and the accompanying logo. This dates to the time when Harvest made its shift from Sunny Entertainments to Veecon. Rohan points out that even though the NOC allowed Veecon to beam the “Harvest TV” name and logo for two years, the MI&B letter provides no such timeline.

The logo in question is the same as Harvest TV, for which George Chacko obtained a trademark in 2011.

A downhill battle

After an almost two-year-long partnership starting in January 2016, Rohan emailed Chacko in November 2017 informing him about the end of their business partnership. His email mentioned that Veecon had filed a name change application with the I&B ministry, to which there hadn’t been any response in the past month. “In last week, we met Ms Jaya, Joint Secretary, she told us that your name change file is complete and OK, but only due to non-availability of signing authority, our name change file is pending with Ministry and very soon it will be approved,” the email said.

Asked why he ended the partnership, Rohan claims it was because BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had alleged that Chacko’s Harvest TV was indulging in anti-Indian religious propaganda. “We got to know that they indulge in wrong practices of converting Hindus into Christians … We got calls from the RSS and other people who complained about how we shouldn’t be running anti-Hindu and anti-Indian content on Harvest TV and Hindu devotional content on Kaatyayani [Veecon’s second channel]. Converting people after all is a crime,” he says.

A Google search did not reveal any particular article or tweet by Mr Swamy making such an allegation against Chacko’s Harvest TV in 2017. We reached out to Swamy but did not receive any reply. The story will be updated as and when he responds.

Did Veecon independently verify these claims against Harvest TV? Rohan says that although he didn’t understand their language (Malayalam), others who did, told him that the channel offered to convert Hindus to Christianity upon monetary returns and ran propaganda against the Hindu faith. When asked about this, Chacko denies the allegations vehemently, saying his channel only ran “Christian news”. 

The possible reason for Chacko describing his content as “Christian News” might reside in the nature of Veecon’s licence. TV licences fall into two categories: “news” and “non-news”. Under Veecon, which possesses a news licence, Chacko’s Harvest TV was mostly beaming spiritual and devotional content. Rohan says: “The definition of ‘news’ is that the news content must be more than four minutes. One doesn’t have to telecast news 24×7.” According to India’s Uplinking Guidelines, “News & Current Affairs TV channel means a channel which has any element of news & current affairs in its programme content.”

In April 2018, the MI&B had passed an impugned order asking Veecon’s channels—Harvest TV and Kaatyayani—to stop broadcasting news. The ministry had objected to the channels carrying only spiritual and devotional content. The company challenged these findings and approached the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), which directed the ministry to not enforce the impugned order without serving a show-cause notice to Veecon.

Rohit’s above-mentioned email also touched upon plans that later came to be associated with Harvest’s Thapar-Barkha reincarnation: “When our new name ‘Tiranga TV’ will [be] approved by ministry then only we will start distribution of the channel to the public. As you also know that ‘Harvest’ name will not be understood by North [Indian] people so your name we don’t want to use, but dry-run is very important for us so that once we get our new name we are technically ready for public distribution.” Deepak Choudhary, president of Veecon Media, claimed in The Print’s report that Veecon “had formally requested the I&B ministry to change its name from Harvest TV to Tiranga TV…” However, Choudhary added that the ministry “has been sitting on it for over a year”.

The news of Veecon calling off the business deal and continuing to use Harvest TV’s name and logo set the Chacko household into a state of panic. His emails to Veecon’s Rohit betray a frantic tone: “The logo belongs to Harvest TV only, you can’t use or you don’t have the right …We have given the NOC to you for specific time not for long term.” Upon Rohan’s insistence that Veecon has the I&B ministry’s approval to use the trademarks, Chacko pleads: “even though we … [haven’t met] … face to face, we have met all your demands and without fail the payments are done from our end.”

In the electronic back and forth that followed, Rohan tried to convince Chacko about why Veecon must use the Harvest TV name and logo, given it had already hired and arranged for a management staff and that preparations were in full swing on a new project. “Once we get new name approved by ministry, we will give your name to you forever,” he wrote. Upon Chacko’s insistent refusal, in February 2018, Veecon tried to circumvent the problem by applying for three new logos, morphing the Harvest design but retaining the name. All three applications stand abandoned.

Due to a mutual arrangement, Veecon let Chacko use their TV licence till August 2018, several months after CEO Rohit Rohan’s email calling off the partnership. However, by this time, the MI&B had issued a notice to Veecon in relation to Harvest TV’s problematic branding, all thanks to Chacko whose complaint pleaded that using morphed logos of Harvest TV was “inherently dishonest and aimed at free riding on the goodwill and reputation of our client [Harvest TV]”.

Given all the water that had flowed under the bridge, Veecon director Rohit’s emails to Chacko now bore a threatening tone rather than an accommodative one. On August 1, 2018, he wrote to the latter about how his new project was on a dead end thanks to Chacko’s refusal to concede: “If you will not allow us to use the current name till our name change permission, in that case our licence will be dormant till name change.

“However, the same case applies on you because Harvest TV is permitted by Ministry to Veecon group, so if you use Harvest TV name and logo with another licence, in that case we will complain against that channel and make sure that channel should be cancelled by the Ministry.”

By late August, Chacko had vacated the Veecon licence and shifted his channel to another licence owned by Airtravel Enterprises India Limited (ATE). A screenshot of the TV channel shows only the ATE logo in the bottom right-hand corner, but Chacko’s own logo is conspicuously absent.

Aftermath

On January 26, 2019, Veecon rechristened Harvest TV as HTN News. Featuring primetime shows by journalists Barkha Dutt and Karan Thapar, the channel aims to “provide space for an alternative narrative while avoiding unnecessary jingoism”.

On January 28,  speaking at the closing debate on the final day of the Jaipur Literature Festival, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal alleged that the Modi government was trying to obstruct the telecast of HTN News on DTH operators Tata Sky and Airtel and cable operator DEN Networks. The next day, The Print quoted a top source in the MI&B: “The Harvest logo is illegal. They have no permission to use the logo and the ministry will soon issue a show-cause notice to the channel and the teleport.” 

Only a couple of days later, Harvest TV was up and running on Airtel, Tata Sky, and DEN. In addition, on January 30, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) allowed HTN to use the Harvest name and logo until the MI&B took a decision on Veecon’s name and logo change application for “Tiranga TV”.

Arguing before the TDSAT, Veecon Media’s counsel Amit Sibal—Kapil Sibal’s son—stated that Chacko must have the issue decided through an appropriate court or authority and not the MI&B. The counsel also denied Chacko’s assertions on the NOC. Sibal, according to his own admission, is associated with the channel as someone who is “trying to finance” it. When asked about his role in the channel, Rohan says Sibal might have stakes in HTN News, but not in Veecon. He then backtracks and denies Sibal’s role altogether. “He neither has a role in HTN News, nor in Veecon media,” he states.

Then what did he make of Sibal’s claim of trying to finance HTN News? “You’ll have to talk to him about that. But he has no stake in our company and in HTN News.” Rohit also denies any tint of anti-Modi bias on HTN. “We don’t harbour any bias. We have hired a separate editor for the channel [HTN News], and there’s no anti-government rhetoric on it. We provide platforms to everyone.” Rohit confirms that Veecon Media lists Jaswant Kumar Srivastava and Lalit Kumar Srivastava as directors.

Sibal told Newslaundry that he has “no stake in any channel, including Harvest and HTN“. 

Coda

As we neared the end of our conversation, Chacko still seems distraught. “I was in a train when I got to know about HTN News on January 26. My blood pressure rose and I was taken to the hospital,” he claims, waving a certificate from his doctor.

“I don’t know why they’re after the Harvest name. Why are they disturbing us? All our name and goodwill is damaged,” he adds.

According to Rohit Rohan, George Chacko dug his own grave. “We had no f**king interest in his Harvest TV. We wanted our new name which the Ministry hasn’t approved. That’s what we told him [Chacko], but he panicked. Unhone khud hi apne aap ko chakravyuh mai daal diya hai (he has placed himself in the middle of a maze).”

But Veecon Media has its own bag of blunders. Lured by the prospect of tying up with big names in Delhi’s journalism scene, it seems that the company hastily attempted to game the system and grab Harvest TV’s pie, further complicating the deadlock.

Despite allowing Veecon to use the “Harvest TV” name and logo, the TDSAT observed that Chacko is free to seek remedy against Veecon with respect to their alleged illegality in using “Harvest TV”.

Back at the YMCA, Chacko admits that he cannot afford to seek such a remedy. “The whole affair will cost me ₹25-50 lakh, and we don’t have the money. These are very big people. What to do?” he simply shrugs.