Shubha Mudgal Writes To Smriti Irani After 'Unauthorised' Airing Of Concert

New Delhi: "Beware (of) the bootleggers and pirates," reads the introduction of Shubha Mudgal's strongly-worded Facebook post, shared recently. The celebrated singer appears furious after DD Bharati played up a recording of her concert multiple times, allegedly without her permission. She told mid-day recently: "No permissions were sought or granted for audio-video recording or telecasting on any channels." In her Facebook post, which arrived a day after she noticed her concert being aired on DD Bharati, she's tagged Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, who she has also officially written to. "I wrote to the Director General of Doordarshan and copied the message to the Minister of Information and Broadcasting on Friday night. I'm awaiting a response from them," the singer told mid-day.

The concert in concern is one performed at the Bhakti Sangeet Utsav in the National Capital on April 30 this year. Shubha Mudgal was accompanied by her husband Dr Aneesh Pradhan on the tabla, whose name, she said, was misspelled during the broadcast. She also accused the channel of not crediting her fellow musicians and criticised DD Bharati for the "poor quality" of recording.

In her Facebook post, Ms Mudgal addressed the recent case of "unauthorised recording" as a "constant menace", and elaborated: "My clear understanding with Sahitya Kala Parishad was that I was being invited for a performance alone. No permission was sought or given either verbally or in writing for recording in any format. Therefore I was shocked to find DD Bharati telecasting my entire performance from a little before 10 pm to approximately 10.30 pm last night!"

"DD Bharati has not sought my permission or permission from the accompanying artistes to record or telecast our performance. No contract, no payment, no agreement of any kind, and yet, there it was, on Channel 1194 of TataSky for all and sundry to see. And I hear from music lovers and friends that this is not the first time this performance has been telecast, as there has been at least one telecast prior to the one last night, if not more," she added.

Read her full post here:
 Shubha Mudgal, best known for her contribution to classical music, also has a reputation for experimenting with genres. In 1996, she won the National Award for Best Non-Feature Film Music Direction for Amrit Beej and was also honoured with the Padma Shri in 2000. Ab Ke Sawan, Pyaar Ke Geet, Mann Ki Manjeree and Anand Mangal remain some of her most popular tracks.