Several television news channels including Star, Zee and CNBC said on Wednesday that they would cut foreign investment to 26 per cent to comply with the new uplinking policy, guidelines for which were announced earlier in the day.

Star News president Ravina Raj Kohli said in a statement: "We welcome the guidelines and will comply with them. Star News will undergo seamless transition to a 24-hour Hindi news service from March 31, 2003 onwards, when the contract with our current content supplier comes to an end."

As per the guidelines, while Star -- which is a wholly owned foreign company -- and CNBC India each gets three months' time to comply with the foreign investment cap, channels like Zee already uplinking from India have been allowed up to one year to almost halve its existing foreign equity.

Earlier, Zee News chief Laxmi Goel told PTI, "The Indian stake in Zee Telefilms now stands at about 48 per cent. We will bring down the foreign stake in this company to 26 per cent within the next one year."

Speaking from Mumbai, CNBC India's chief executive officer Haresh Chawla said, "We will work towards complying with the guidelines." In CNBC India, while Raghav Behl's TV 18 holds 49 per cent equity, the majority 51 per cent is held by CNBC Asia.

As per the guidelines, any channel applying for uplinking news should be registered in India, and majority of board of directors, its CEO and those exercising editorial control must be resident Indians.