The guidelines ban the broadcasting of information that could reveal security operations and of live phone-ins with attackers or hostages, reported the Indian Express newspaper.

The repeated screening of gory images showing blood or badly injured people will also be banned.

'Our guidelines have previously referred to national security but the Mumbai episode was unprecedented,' Annie Joseph, secretary-general of the News Broadcasters Association, told AFP ahead an official announcement later on Thursday.

She said that, although the NBA could not force member stations to comply with the rules, it was 'in the stations' interest' to follow them.

Similar regulations are already in place in the United States, Britain and Canada.

Indian television news channels were heavily criticised for their coverage of the Mumbai siege, with one station broadcasting a telephone conversation with two of the gunmen who killed 163 people over three days. -- AFP