Shri Arun Jaitley, the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, inaugurated a seminar on "Satellite Broadcasting - Retrospect and Prospect", at Ahmedabad, today (August 12, 2000) to mark 25 years of Satellite Broadcasting in India. The occasion also coincides with the birth anniversary of Dr Vikram A Sarabhai, whose vision brought Satellite TV broadcasting to India 25 years back. World's largest Techno-social experiment called SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) started beaming educational television programmes to nearly 2400 villages in the country on August 1, 1975. Today there are nearly hundred channels of Satellite TV beamed by both the Public broadcaster Doordarshan and a large number of private TV broadcasters.

The seminar was organised by Development & Educational Communication Unit (DECU) of ISRO and was participated by well known experts in the field of mass media, educational communication and satellite broadcast technology. The Minister delivered the key note address and released a first day poster cover. Two documents, viz., "Yatra - The Journey" and "Disha : The Direction", were released by Mrs Mrinalini Sarabhai in the presence of Dr K Kasturirangan, Chairman, ISRO at the end of the inaugural function.