"Finally, the Indian government has appointed India as the 'Mother of Democracy' during its year of the G20 Presidency and plastered posters across every inch of the country proclaiming that. The word 'independent' means just that," she said. In fact, BBC journalists routinely grill the British PM and all elected officials holding them accountable for their actions. "The BBC is an independent public broadcaster so if it puts out a documentary, it is not acting at the behest of the British government. "Everyone's shocked and no one is fooled that today's tax survey, as it's being called, is a retaliation to the recent BBC documentary 'The Modi Question'," said Dr Mukulika Banerjee, a leading author and academic at the London School of Economics (LSE). Meanwhile, there was shock in the UK as news of the action unfolded early on Tuesday morning and a broad consensus has been that the action was linked to the controversial BBC documentary aired in the UK last month. The BBC did not give further details of what has been described as "surveys" by the Income Tax (IT) department, which reportedly involved local BBC staff being prevented from leaving or entering the office premises and their mobile phones and other gadgets being seized. "We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible," the spokesperson said. "The Income Tax Authorities are currently at the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai and we are fully cooperating," a BBC spokesperson said in a statement. The IT action against the BBC comes weeks after the broadcaster aired a controversial two-part documentary -"India: The Modi Question"- on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 2002 Gujarat riots. In New Delhi, officials said the survey was being carried out to investigate issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies, and alleged that the BBC had been served with notices in the past but was "defiant and non-compliant" and had significantly diverted its profits. While there has been no official statement from the UK government related to the action, British sources said they are "closely monitoring" reports of tax surveys conducted at the offices of the BBC in India.
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