NEW DELHI: The executive vacuum at the top of India’s public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati has been filled. A three member committee consisting of India’s vice-president Hamid Ansari, Press Council of India chairman Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad and ministry of information & broadcasting secretary Ajay Mittal (representing the President of India) decided to appoint Prasar Bharati part time member and technocrat Shashi Shekar Vempati as its CEO.
 
 The appointment is for a period of five years from the time Vempati assumes charge of his office.
 
As part time member, Vempati served as chairman of the audit committee, member of finance & accounts committee, technology committee and sports rights committee, apart from HR committee.
 
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, Vempati has over two decades of experience as a technocrat with specialization in corporate management, technology consulting and digital media.
 
He also served for more than 16 years with Infosys as product strategist and digital innovator in North America. He has two patents in his name: real time business event monitoring, tracking and execution architecture” and “system and method of monitoring and management of inventory of products and assets in real time”.:.

He spent three years as CEO of Niti Digital and was responsible for the News Media Platform NitiCentral.com - India's first center right digital news media platform, the data and analytics platform IndiaVotes.com - India's largest public database of electoral data and the digital campaign platform India272.com which played a pivotal role for Narendra Modi's Mission 272+ during the 2014 Indian general elections.
 
He has authored many books including ‘Broadcasting Technologies in India’, ‘National Digital Security Architecture in India’, and ‘Creating a Global Media Platform out of India.”
 
Earlier in February this year, Prasar Bharati chairman Surya Prakash wrote to the government to expedite the selection for a new CEO and member (personnel) in the pubcaster.
 
A high-level committee headed by Vice President Hamid Ansari has to – as per protocol - meet to select a new CEO and other members.
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The previous CEO Jawhar Sircar resigned prematuredly (his terms was to end in February 2017) with effect from 4 November 2016. Since then, two different officials - member (finance) Rajeev Singh and before him then member personnel Suresh C Panda (since retired) held interim charge of the post.