'1980: Key Events

• Indira Gandhi’s Congress (I) returns to power, also winning Punjab with the support of Bhindranwale and other groups which unleash extreme Right terrorist attacks.

• As a result of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, the number of foreign companies in India falls from 510 in 1975 to 300 by 1980-1.

• The second satellite launch from Sriharikota, the satellite ROHINI, is successful. The first colour telecast from Doordarshan, an experiment on 18 July, announces the 1982 shift to colour and commercialisation. The Information & Broadcasting Minister makes colour TV one of the Congress (I)’s main election promises.

• India has 6368 permanent and 4024 temporary ‘touring’ theatres.

• The Lotus Cinema, hired by the FFC?, becomes Bombay’s only venue for ‘art’ films, opening with Bimal Dutt’s Kasturi (1978).

• The FFC? merges with the Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation to become the NFDC. Independent film-makers start the Forum for Better Cinema and ask the government to invite Satyajit Ray to head the new organisation. ​Ray declines the offer, urging the Forum to exercise caution. The NFDC’s Board combines disparate interests and is unable to agree which kind of cinema to support.

• K. S. Karanth’s Report of the Working Group on National Film Policy is published. It recommends, e. g. , the foundation of a Chalachitra Akademi for film in line with the academies for literature, theatre, dance and the visual arts. The academy would combine the Directorate of Film Festivals, the National Film Archive of India, a non-commercial import/export agency, a film museum and the means to fund film societies, education and research programmes. The government ignores the report.

• Satyajit Ray retrospective at the Indian International Film Festival; Mrinal Sen retrospective at the National Film Theatre, London.

• The journal Cinema Vision (India) starts in Bombay with an issue on silent cinema.