Sushmita Sen and daughter Renee walk the ramp during Neeta Lulla’s show at the Lakme India Fashion Week in Mumbai on Thursday. Picture by Pabitra Das

New Delhi, March 29: If Sushma Swaraj cracked the whip, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi has pulled the plug.

Just when the fuss over banning AXN had died down, the information and broadcasting minister struck again, yanking fashion channel FTV off the air, lest too much body corrupt his countrymen.

The channel’s crime: showing programmes that are against “good taste and decency, denigrate women and are likely to adversely affect public morality”.

The two-month ban — from April 1 to end-May — has come bang in the middle of Mumbai’s fashion week, just the sort of thing the channel covers across the world. But tell that to the I&B minister and chances are he’ll tell you FTV is more flesh than fashion.

In a statement, the ministry said it had come to the government’s notice that some cable operators were transmitting/re-transmitting a satellite channel namely FTV.Com India, which is reportedly telecasting programmes such as Midnight Hot that show “skimpily dressed and semi-naked models”. And so the blackout.

The government has invoked Section 20 (2) of the Cable Television Networks Regulation Act, 1995, under which it can regulate or prohibit transmission of a channel in the interest of security, national sovereignty, relations with friendly nations as well as “public order, decency or morality”.

FTV has been in trouble before also. When the National Democratic Alliance was in power, then I&B minister Sushma cracked the whip on the 24-hour channel.

But amid criticism over playing moral cop, Sushma stopped short of banning the foreign channel. In turn, FTV promised to behave and, since then, toned down its content.

Models and designers bristled at the ban.

“It is a hypocritical step,” said Neha Kapoor, a model. “Midnight Hot shows bikini-clad women, there is no nudity.”

“It’s bizarre and irrational,” added designer Kiran Uttam Ghosh.

Earlier in January, the I&B ministry had banned AXN for two months, mainly over a programme called World’s Sexiest Commercials.

After the channel apologised, that ban was revoked a fortnight before its term ran out on March 20.