Within a week of BJP leader and former Union Minister Subramanian Swamy revealing on Twitter that he had complained about former Editor-in-chief of Times Now Arnab Goswami naming his TV channel “Republic”, it has now been revealed by Swamy that Arnab has decided to change the name of the news and current affairs channel.
In a letter written to the Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Swamy had argued that any commercial venture being called “Republic” was a violation of the Emblems and Names (Prevention of improper use) Act of 1950. We had explained in detail why Swamy had a point.
Interestingly, Swamy had, in a way, suggested the solution too on Twitter on the same day. While responding to a query by a user, he said that Arnab was free to name his channel something like “The Republic” but he can’t call it only “Republic”:
@jayjanardan : Except Republic nothing else including The Republic is barred by law. Arnab needs to taught truth and law. He is ignorant.
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) January 25, 2017
And now, Swamy has shared on Twitter a letter purportedly written by Arnab Gowami to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, where Arnab is informing the government that he was changing his channel’s name from “Republic” to “Republic TV”:
Mr Goswami know that chickens come home to roost. Don’t be a porki with me pic.twitter.com/MvmPtiFy7a
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) January 30, 2017
The letter was written two days back and it informs the ministry that trademark application (most probably a fresh application) has been made in the name of “Republic TV” and the application for uplinking and downlinking of the channel was also being made in the same name. A new logo too has been designed for the purpose of re-branding and renaming.
The letter further requests the ministry to treat all correspondence to have been made in the name of “Republic TV” instead of “Republic”.
So it looks like Swamy has won this round. Or maybe Arnab doesn’t want any spanners to be thrown into his plan that would delay the launch of his news and current affairs channels and is playing safe. The channel is expected to be on-air in a couple of months.
The social media handles of “Republic” were not re-named at the time of publishing of this report. Renaming of the handles will confirm that the re-branding exercise has been initiated. This report will be updated if the handles are renamed or any clarification is issued by Arnab Goswami or his company.
