India
Doctor Who was not seen on TV in INDIA, despite it being a major Commonwealth country with a PAL colour service (nationwide from 1982 onwards).
The Doordarshan television service was launched from Delhi in September 1959. A second station based in Bombay was introduced in 1972. Stations in Srinagar and Amritsar opened in 1973, then Calcutta, Madras and Lucknow in 1975, with relays extending the coverage of the regional stations to other parts of the country.
Although very limited PAL colour transmissions from Delhi commenced in 1979, a nationwide colour feed by satellite was in place by November 1982, to beam coverage of the Asian Games from the capital to the rest of India and to neighbouring countries.
OTHER SOURCES?
It's fairly likely that one of or both the Peter Cushing Dalek films were screened in cinemas in the late 1960s or early 1970s (the second film was released in Pakistan in 1967), but we have not been able to find any listings in the few available newspapers from the period 1966 to 1970.
A very brief run of Jon Pertwee serials was screened in Bangladesh in 1980, with some Jon Pertwee and Tom Bakers in Sri Lanka in 1981 and 1984; it's possible signals from these broadcasts were available in certain parts of India.
Although the UK satellite station BBC World Service was available in India in the early 1990s, the 1993 and 1994 repeats of Doctor Who were not included in the feed that reached that part of Asia.
According to the IMDB, the TV Movie was shown in India on Saturday, 25 September 2004, however, we do not have access to any Indian newspapers from this date to confirm this.
But of note, when the New Series was shown in India from May 2015, none of the news reports about this mention the TV movie being shown ten years earlier.
India in Doctor Who
- Marco Polo had travelled to India, and brought the Sacred Tooth of Buddha to Cathay; Kublai Khan was the Ruler of Asia, India, Cathay and other territories
- The Daleks sad they were the masters of India (The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
- Daheer had embroidery from India (The Crusade)
- An Indian elephant is on board The Ark
- There were T-Mat terminals in Calcutta and Bombay (The Seeds of Death) (although the cities should be called Kolkata and Mumbai in the future!)
- The Doctor showed a slide of a Hindu demon with horns (The Daemons)
- The SS Bernice was sailing the Indian Ocean towards Bombay; the cook was a Madrassi (Carnival of Monsters)
- The injured Doctor is attended to by an Indian doctor in The Hand of Fear
- Colonel Skinsale served with the army in India (Horror of Fang Rock)
- The Doctor and Scobie liken the illusions they experience to that of the Indian Rope Trick (Time-Flight)
- The Doctor knew of a nice little restaurant in the Khyber Pass (Ghost Light)
