Developmental Stories from India

Academic Study Finds Reuters Middle East Coverage Tainted by Propaganda, Violates Company Principles

ybalu — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:32:54 +0000

Dear friends,

Here is the link to an interesting story. Pl.Read.

Academic Study Finds Reuters Middle East Coverage Tainted by Propaganda, Violates Company Principles.

Dr.Y.Bala Murali Krishna

Media houses stall Wage Board recommendations

ybalu — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:55:44 +0000

Using the Indian Newspaper Society as a tool, media barons have launched a campaign to stall the Wage Board recommendations. Y BALA MURALI KRISHNA says owners have continued to oppose any attempts to regulate their activities(As published by www.thehoot.com.

Posted/Updated Wednesday, Aug 03 19:47:36, 2011

Scores of journalists and non-journalists, governed by the respective statutory Wage Boards, are up in arms against the alleged ‘malicious campaign’ unleashed through the Indian Newspapers Society (INS) by a few Media Houses opposing the recommendations of the latest Justice G.R.Majithia Wage Board constituted by the Centre.

They are awaiting with bated breath the verdict of the Supreme Court bench that had, on July 18, 2011, informally directed the Centre not to go ahead with the implementation of the recommendations for two weeks while hearing Anand Bazaar Patrika Group’s petition which contended that the recommendations were sought to be implemented without the group getting a copy of the awards.

The scribes wonder how the big guns of INS, representing 1,017 small, medium and large members, have suddenly got united to stall the implementation of Wage Board recommendations.

In just the first 15 days in June 2011, the Times of India published four articles on the subject: On June 2 the paper’s CEO, Ravindra Dhariwal, wrote an edit-page article titled “Muzzling the Media“. Another one appeared on June 4 titled, “Wage Board proposal will force many newspapers to shut down: INS”.

On June 6, the story, “Wage Boards challenged in Supreme Court”, on the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group filing a petition in the Supreme Court, was followed by INS president Kundan R. Vyas’ piece on June 9, “Future of Press at stake?”, followed by some ads in the TOI and Economic Times against the Wage Board recommendations.

Interestingly, Ashish Bagga, the India Today group’s CEO and a prominent functionary on INS, wrote an opinion piece titled “How to kill the print media” in the magazine while the Hindustan Timeshad a report titled, “Wage Board outdated: experts”.

It must be recalled that The Working Journalists and other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 (45 of 1955), an outcome of the journalists’ struggles in immediate post-independent era, provides for regulation of conditions of service of working journalists and non-journalists newspaper employees.

Sections 9 and 13 C of the Act, inter-alia, provide for constitution of two Wage Boards for fixing or revising rates of wages in respect of working journalists and non-journalists newspaper employees, respectively. The Central Government shall, as and when necessary, constitute Wage Boards.

The struggles had also resulted in the constitution of the Press Council of India following the recommendations of the First Press Commission headed by Justice Rajashyaksha even as the Second Press Commission headed by Justice K.M.Mathew had made various recommendations for improving the status and upholding the Press Freedom.

“How can these big newspapers talk of the threat to press freedom when journalists and non-journalists have been getting the Wage Board awards, while the barons spare no effort at taking the lion’s share of the ad budget of the Centre, starving thousands of small and medium newspapers and periodicals?”, the community points out.

Media houses often conveniently forget that the Wage Board was a tri-partite arrangement and the recommendations were a consensus outcome. The current Wage Board was constituted 13 years after the earlier Wage Board headed by Justice Manisana Singh.

On the other hand, media houses continue to recruit journalists and non-journalists on “contract basis” bypassing the statutory Wage Board structure. Some had been denying their employees the statutory contributory provident fund and other benefits by securing undertaking letters saying the workers had voluntarily agreed to the condition.

Unfortunately, the Centre and the States had, till date, failed to evolve a mechanism to oversee the implementation of earlier Wage Board recommendations, leave alone punishing the delinquent newspapers, for obvious reasons.

The newspapers, which blatantly justify “paid news” syndrome conveniently resort to unilateral “pay cuts” during the so-called recession, muzzling the voice of the employees, as the former do not like erosion of their profits. Being capital rich cross-media holders, they ask the Centre why the electronic media was not brought under the Wage Board purview.

Unfortunately, successive governments, for various reasons, failed to constitute “Media Council of India” replacing the toothless Press Council of India, leave alone the third “Media Commission” covering all media.

This is apart from failing to concede the long pending demand for “constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the media” on the lines of the first amendment of the American Constitution as against the existing ” Right to Information” under the RTI which has also fallen under the “dilution list” of the Centre which had removed the CBI from its ambit recently.

M L Talwar, General Secretary, All India Newspaper Employees’ Federation, averred that the INS campaign through the media houses was nothing but “calumny indulging in a vulgar show of strength and money power with their own set of rules against their employees”.

Hundreds of pages of evidence by employees and employers were placed before the Wage Boards that took three years to come out with the recommendations submitted to the government in December 2010. Now that the Government is about to issue a notification, the media houses have started spreading these “lies to mislead the public and the Government”.

INS is being misused by a few powerful media companies. They had their own representation on the Wage Boards and they should not raise such objections at this stage, Talwar said.

Debunking the INS argument that Wage Boards are a threat to media freedom, Talwar said employers are only trying to secure more freedom to hire and fire. The current moves hints at an attempt by the big media houses to weaken press freedom.

The Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) Secretary General Parmanand Pandey, also a senior Supreme Court advocate, points out that there had not been a single instance in the last 60 years when the newspapers had buckled under the pressure of the government because of the Wage Boards. On the contrary, they have robustly opposed any attempts to regulate them.

Constitution of Wage Boards is a procedure adopted across the world for formulating any policy for the workers. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has been following this method to prepare its own conventions. Newspaper employees and employers make their submissions before the Wage Board. Representatives of proprietors virtually grill the employees and their advocates during the hearings.

At the same time media houses continue to be silent on issues like paid news, Medianet (in which anybody can buy his or her way into the paper), cross-media ownership (which results in monopolies shutting out choice), dubious ownership in which shady characters become media barons and predatory pricing, which strangulates small newspapers.

India’s Development Journalist gets Magsaysay Award

ybalu — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:58:05 +0000

P Sainath, honoured with this year’s Ramon

BY: Naz AsgarhNew Delhi: Magsaysay Award for his “passionate commitment to restore the rural poor to India’s consciousness” today said structural inequalities were the main cause of the failure of all poverty removal programmes since independence and the situation has been exacerbated by the economic reforms.

”And as a journalist, I find the scenario more painful when I see a disconnect between mass media and mass reality,” Mr Sainath told UNI.

Rural poverty is not a disease but a result of structural
inequalities which have been only strengthened by the ruthless working of the market forces, said Sainath, the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu.

The small farmer is being driven out of the rural scene,
emerging in some city as a rootless domestic worker, as the government was pursuing a policy of corporatisation of farming, he said. And it was unfortunate that these developments devastating the lives of millions are not finding as prominent a place in our national media as they deserve to, said Sainath who had intensively toured India’s ten poorest districts under a fellowship and tried to gain an in-depth understanding of the causes of poverty.

The fruits of his labour have appeared in the form of his best selling book ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought,’ and hundreds of articles.

During those years, Sainath found that the cause of poverty in those districts was not the drought but structural inequalities.

Elaborating, he said in the last 60 years, no state except three or four have carried out land reforms, and the Government has not made any serious efforts to end land monopolies.

No efforts have been made to give the tribals rights over their forests, though only as late as this year a tribal rights bill has been passed.

The concentration of wealth has been increasing and today a handful of the population was enjoying a standard of living it had never dreamt of, while the majority were witnessing a fall in their standard of living they had never expected, he said.

”Moreover, we have not been able to remove caste discrimination.These are the areas where the Indian state has failed,” he said.

Replying to a question, he said that though he would not say that India should remain completely untouched by the process of globalisation, it should certainly enter the club on its own terms and not on its knees.

” We could very well be part of globalisation without allowing the United States to dump one billion bales of its highly subsidised cotton,” he said.

The US produced cotton worth 3.9 billion dollars last year but the subsidy on it was worth 4.7 billion dollars. This cheap cotton was being dumped in developing countries crashing the prices of home-grown cotton and leading to farmers’ suicides, he added.

”In fact, what has happened is that India has traded the interest of its farmers at WTO in return for the benefit of a few thousand software personnel,” Sainath said.

Today, a rural family was consuming much less quantity of
food grains than it was doing about ten years ago, Sainath said.

Replying to a question about the Nehruvian model, he said
one might find fault with that model but it was far less damaging to the country’s people and economy than the present liberalised market-driven model.

Moreover, it was under the Nehruvian model that India made progress in several sectors, he added.

The present model was only increasing inequalities and destroying the livelihood of the majority of people, as the government trying to introduce corporatisation of agriculture.

”One gets really perturbed when one thinks what would happen to those displaced farmers when they would not find job in any factories which are fast closing or downsizing,” Sainath said.

India could very well follow a third model and for that it
does not have to go very far. It is there in the directive
principles of the state policy contained in the Constitution,he added.

Answering questions on the Green Revolution, Sainath vehemently opposed intensive fertiliser based farming. Chemical-based agriculture was playing havoc with the soil as it was water intensive. It was because of this that there was so much water crisis in Punjab which was in the forefront of the Green revolution.

He, however, believes that the Green revolution was not all because of fertilisers and high yielding varieties. A major reason was the banks, after nationalisation, made credit available to small farmers who could not get it from private banks earlier.

Coming back to the issue of the mass media and rural poverty, he said it was not that the print media was completely innocent and had sidelined the people’s issues only under the influence of the visual media.

Even in the early 1990s, the initial years of reforms, there were fewer papers giving due place to agrarian issues. They were flooded with matters of interest to only a handful of people who benefited from these reforms, he said.

Though the print media did not go to such extremes as the
electronic media in covering the trivia and sensationalising any event, it should certainly do some introspection whether it was adequately playing the role it was expected of, Sainath added.

”A few days ago, a national newspaper carried on its front page the news about a man in Punjab paying Rs 15 lakh for getting a unique number for his cell phone. But very few people know that today the average per capita income of a farm household is only Rs 503, of which 53 per cent is spent on food, as this data would not make it
to the front page,” he said.

This distance between the media and the masses was reflected in the physical inaccessibility of a newspaper’s editors for the people.

”Today, if you go to a newspaper office, you would have to
pass through various stages of security before you can reach its editor. In the past it was not so difficult for a common man at these places,” he said.

Sainath also felt that the contract system was destroying the journalists’ unions and consequently their freedom. ”It is in fact a violation of the Working Journalists Act,” he added.//EOM//

APJU Calls for New Media Commission/Wage Board

ybalu — Sun, 06 May 2007 12:03:35 +0000

Goan Journalists Stage Dharna on May Day for New Wage Board

ybalu — Thu, 03 May 2007 13:33:22 +0000

BY: Y.Bala Murali Krishna

Panaji, May 1-2k7 (UNI) Journalists in Goa staged a dharna here today on the occasion of the International Labour Day, demanding immediate constitution of a new wage board and announcement of not less than 50 per cent interim relief for both journalists and non-journalists in the country.

Wielding placards and shouting slogans, the agitators, under the banner of Goa Union of Journalists (GUJ), marched to the Azad Maidan in the heart of the city. They demanded the state government to announce a Rs 1 crore corpus fund for pension scheme.

Expressing their resentment against recruitment of journalists on ”contract basis” thus blocking promotional opportunities of the staffers, the journalists sought announcement of a media policy by the Centre that could further help strengthen their working conditions.

”This could be achieved through unity among the journalists and non-journalists, whose struggles over the years since early 1950s under the leadership of late M Chalapathi Rao and K Ramaraon led to the constitution of Press Commissions and wage boards,” the leaders who spoke on the occasion, said.

The protestors also favoured constitution of a ”Media
Commission” to study the working conditions and status of different media, including the electronic media, to better their lot besides bringing them under the purview of the Working Journalists Act.

They regretted that the wage board, which was to be constituted every three years, had not yet been constituted after a lapse of 13 years while the government pay commissions had been constituted promptly.

The ‘dharna’ was greeted by the state AITUC leader Christopher Fonseca, who had earlier led a massive procession of labour force from different industries which culminated in a rally at the Municipal Park to celebrate the May Day.//EOM//

PRSI for accreditation and professional standards in public

ybalu — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:34:31 +0000

BY: Y.Bala Murali Krishna

Panaji,Mar 18-2k7(UNI) For the first time, the Public Relations Society of India(PRSI), a body of professionals engaged in image building exercise of different public and private sector institutions in the country,is trying to get “accreditation” from the Centre on the lines of the highly developed countries in tune with the emerging economic environment.

At the sametime, the PRSI is striving for setting professional standards in all journalism and mass communication institutions teaching the subject of public relations through similar accreditation facility.

“We have already presented our case before the the Press Information Bureau(PIB),New Delhi,which in turn has to seek approval of the Planning Commission of India. The Union Ministries of Information and Broadcasting and Human Resources Development have to clear the proposal,” says PRSI National President Dr.Ajit Pathak.

Talking to UNI here today, Dr.Pathak,who is also secretary,Global Alliance of Public Relations and Communictions Management representing 65 PR bodies of the world,said the accreditation
procedure sets benchmarks for recruiting the PR professional with requisite qualifications and experience like in other countries.

He regretted people without necessary qualifications and expertise started teaching the courses in public relations. An experts committee of the PRSI, constituted recently to frame a uniform
syllabus for PR courses, is likely to come out with the draft by this year end.

The PRSI favoured according accreditation to these journalism institutions also for turning out realtime professionals who were conversant with the art of image building exercise of the office they represent without compromising ethics, he said.

Dr.Pathak was here to address the National Council meeting of the PRSI and an interactive session on “Brand Promotion” organised by the Goa Chapter of the PRSI yesterday.He is also senior manager,
corporate communications,Indiann Oil Corporation Limited, New Delhi.

The PR professionals, Dr.Pathak said,should try to convert the “threats” of the current days into “opportunities” besides meeting the genuine demands of the “professional journalists with speed,
accuracy and command strictly adhearing to ethics”.

The PRSI, he said,was also concerned with national issues like the anti-terrorism drive and media transperancy besides right to information.

In this connection, he recalled an incident when a Russian PR consultant had exposed the chinks in the media by issuing a “fake” press release which was published by a section of the media that got
bribes without verifying its authenticity.

He said Goa chapter was ready to organise a national seminar on the “Right to Information Act” soon that helps empower the people from the grassroots level. The PRSI had organised similar seminars in seven other states so far.

Participating in the interactive session on “Promoting Brand Image” earlier, Mr.Asish Kaul, senior vice president,Corporate Brand Development,See Entertainment Enterprises Limited,called for “positioning the PR profession” which was at a “new low” these days.

“We failed to position the profession as you are not trained for it, but driven by the marketing or the finance officer or the CEO of the company, giving no chance to image management we are meant for,”
Mr.Kaul said.

Change managers were needed to drive the PR professionals who had just remained “mere glorified postmen for the media personnel”.The colleges treaching PR also need professionals, he said.

In this connection, he asked the PRSI to emerge as a certifying authority to develop qualified professionals for hiring by the corporate bodies.

Mr.Y.Venkata Ramana, creative engineer specialised in Industrial and Advertising photography had during his presentation on “Branding Images” asked the industry to build “quality visual banks of high
resolution images to promote brand image in a big way.”

He regretted that the companies and corporates spend less than 5 per cent of its revenue on ordinary quality advertisements and not even 2 per cent on visual making as against the foreign companies which stress on quality visuals and ads for brand promotion.

He presented a high quality short film he made on the iron ore industry of Goa in all its facets starting from extraction to export through Mormugao Port Limited using the Google Earth satellite Imeragery inputs.

Mr.Rajan Narayan,editor, Goan Observer,had earlier released the first copy of the PRSI’s “Journal of Communication Studies” compiled by the Bhopal-based Public Relations Education,Research and Integrated Training Foundation.

Mr.Nitin Kunkolienker,PRSI.Goa Chapter Chairman as also GCCI President and Mr.Rajesh Parida, secretary unfolded strategies for strengthening the PR movement in the country in general and Goa in
particular.

Goa chapter, they said, had decided to host a naional workshop on the PR Day on April 21 on various aspects of public relations.

Mr.R.K.Dharan,All India Regional Vice-President (south) of PRSI said Chennai is hosting the 3-day 29th PRSI chapter meet to be inaugurated by union minister Dayanidhi Maran on December 13 in
Chennai.

With the theme of “PR in Infrastructure”, the meeting would deal with various aspects of infrastructure development including national highways,civil aviation, private ports, energy management, management of induistrial estates and hospitals, and role of media and other stake holders in branding of India, he added.//EOM//

Judges,lawyers and journalists in the forefront in Pak

ybalu — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:22:49 +0000

BY: Y.Bala Murali krishna
Panaji,Nov 13(2k6): Judges, lawyers and journalists continue to be in he forefront the movement for restoration of democracy in Pakistan where economy is in shambles under the current political dispensation with no constitutional validity,says a strategic affairs expert from the neighbouring country.

“The media at the micro level is stronger in voicing dissent but not the bog media, particilarly the print media with a couple of publications as the owners are pro-government,” avers Dr.Farooq Hassan, a senior advocate of the supreme court and advisor to four former prime ministers of Pakistan.

Interacting with South-Asia affairs scholars and general public on “Domestic,political and economic developments in Pakistan” here this evening under the aegis of the International Centre,Goa and the Goa University’s political science department, Dr.Hassan said the big media did not publish views against the General Musharaff’s regime
for obvious reasons.

With 83 per cent of the budget going for armament industry and defence spending, the economy was in shambles even as Pakistan started importing essential commodities like atah,sugar and dal from India, he said.

Though agriculture continues to be the mainstay in Pakistan, no public investment in the sector has been made nor it adopted the public-private-partnership approach for development of agriculture in a big way like in the West.

“Pakistan has not done well in the economic front at all and the
situation worsened after the devaluation of its currency after the 9/11 episode. Industry, like its neighbour Bangladesh, has also not done well,thus depending on imports from India on which it accorded the most favoured nation status,” Dr.Hassan remarked.

On the otherhand, he regretted,Pakistan ranked the second worst in terms of corruption on par with Bangladesh occupying 162th rank as against 278 rank by India.

Stating that domestic markets were devolved out of corruption and no monetary and 5-year policies evolved involving the banking,stock markets and other sectors that matter, the economy was in shambles in Pakistan,Dr.Hassan said.

At the sametime, he said, Pakistan had been torn with several
internal crises like the separatist movement in Baluchistan on the lines of pre-Bangladesh assassination of Mujibur Rahman even as it was plagued with the developments in Afgfhanistan,Talibans and al- quida.

Interestingly, majority of the Pakistan’s military force was from three of its provinces and the country’s stability depended much more on the strength and cohesion of its federal structure even as the country had no “constitution” of its own under the military regime.

Taking exception to equating “Islamic fundamentalism” with extremism by the USA and other developed nations, the visiting Harvard University professor on international affairs Dr.Hassan said “Islamic resurgence” in Pakistan had now been on rise with islamic parties representing about 51 constituencies as against hardly two in the past.

This showed the engagement of the fundamentalist parties in
electoral process with elements of democracy.Even most of the military people had the islamic background.

“The problem is not with the fundamentalism but extremism,” he said.The concept of Islamic state became questionable and suspect after the 9/11 episode. Most of the generals were products of islamic resurgence,” he said.

In this connection, Dr.Hassan, who represented Pakistan in the UN General Assenbly since 1997 as a delegate to the UN Geneva Human Rights Commission and as a leader of the delegation at the UN preparing the statute of International Criminal Court during 1997-99,observed that India and Malaysis were the only countries which had not yet witnessed military coup so far.

Referring to Pakistan emerging as a democratic country, Dr.Hassan said,” the possibility is very very suspect as long as general Musharaff is the President even as military rule has to end on November 2007 unless he does not manipulate.”

The President has to be elected by the Assembly but “I am ashamed to say that there is no constitution in Pakistan despite being a nuclear power and having the fifth largest army in the world. If civil government comes, what would happen is a question mark,” he said.

Referring to the Indian “peace lobby” in Pakistan, Dr.Hassan
favoured widening representatives to include the crickteeers,
jornalists, cinema personalities and cultural troups as against
people with the communist and socialist idealogy which had not been accepted by Pakistanis,Dr.Hasan added.

In this connection, he appreciated the gesture of India in liberally granting VISAS to journalists and others visiting Pakistan and vice-versa for forging better relations. //eom//

Media Sing-a-lore in Singapore

ybalu — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 17:01:57 +0000

Media has to distance from Government in Singapore:Expert
BY: Y.Bala Murali Krishna
Panaji,Oct 27-2k6: The Singapore media,with more stringent libel aws, has to distance itself from the government so that the readers ecome main stakeholders in the multi-ethnic society to crve a roper roadmap for its bright future,says a media expert from the South East Asian country.

“Media has changed quite dramatically over the last 10 years and the process is still on.The government knows it has to deliver economic growth and is consciouis of the role of the media which has of late been attracting talented people,” Mr.P.N. Balji, former editor-in-chief and CEO of MediaCorp Press observed.

He was interacting with UNI after after delivering a talk on “Media & Democracy-The Cases of Malaysia and Singapore” as part of the public lecture series organised by the International Centre, Goa, Goa Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Goa Union of Journalists here today.

Admitting that stringent media laws exist in Singapore and
Malaysia,particularly related to libel, Mr.Balji justified the
ongoing role of the media in supporting the government policies that had been hielding successful economic growth and prosperity to the small country.

“Why should the media assume the role of the opposition when the government is delivering goods,” he argued thus brushing aside the idealistic roles of the media as “constructive opposition and agenda setting” as had been done in highly democratic countries.

Talking about freedom of expression vis-a-vis the stringent libel and press laws,media control common in both the countries,the former CEO of one of Singapore’s leading commuter papers Today said even the top ministerial functionaries had to talk with utmost caution in even addressing public meetings lest they face music.

The end of the cold war had brought a revolution in the Internet world over and more so in the two countries with youth aspiring for electronic papers, thus bringing about a radical change in the editorials and content and formats of the newspapers in both the countries.

“Our newspapers are now engaged in narrowcasting exercise, catering particularly to specialised segments such as women,youth,blue collar workers and children unlike in the past with a business model for survival,” he said.

The Straits Time newspaper with a circulation of 400,000 copies and 1.3 million readership was now a changed lot and had become a more reader friendly by adopting different business models after the ingression of the internet in Singapore,he said.

Even the “free newspapers” like Today that emerged from the Internet impact started netting 5 million Singapore dollar profit these days even as most of the papers like the New Straits Times,Barita Haryan were run under the “sophisticated control” of government companies.

But the societies these days had been experiencing a different
situation with influx of foreigners in both the countries, particularly in pro-US Singapore and emergence of 3G
syndrome of “girls,gays and grays who find a sense of vacuum”.

In this scenario, most of the youth who left out of Singapore did not like to go back even as the economy had been growing with contribution from outside.

Girls donot like to marry and beget children while the gays with their own exclusive pubs are growing with the ainstream media not taking cognizance of them and the grays with a sense of vacuum not caring for Singapore.

These 3G’s have become a big pressure groups in Singapore causing concern for all even as the foreign comunities who constitute 3 million out of 7 million population hardly ix among themselves for various reasons, he bemoaned.

He also expressed concern that even the foreign talent (expatriates including Indians)does not like to “stay” in Singapore after serving there for long.

Another major concern was “threat of terrorism” in Singapore as it had become the biggest avowed “lackey” of the US government consistently with not hesitating to carve out a military base for the US,while the tiny nations had become global villages these days,he added.

“Though their economies had been growing in scale,can Singapore and Malaysia avoid thinking and questioning societies and decide the type of democracy in 10 years to come?” Mr.Balji asked.//EOM//

AMIC Colloquium favours RTI Act for South Asia

ybalu — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 05:55:44 +0000

Experts for sensitising media on human rights, training, networking for a better South Asia

BY Y Bala Murali Krishna

Panaji, Oct 15(2k6) South Asian media experts have favoured training of journalists on various aspects of human rights, both in-house and in mass communications institutes, besides sensitising the editors on the need for renewed reporting on the sensitive issue.
”This would help sensitize the media on reporting about
conflicts in the society with a human touch,besides promoting
building up of regional networks for media at risk in covering the issues,”the experts opined.
This is one of the recommendations the 3-day South Asia Media colloquium-2006 concluded here today. It was organised jointly by the prestigious Asian Media Information and Communications Centre (AMIC-India), FriedrichEbert Stiftung(Germany) and International Centre-Goa.
More than 40 specialists including those from Bangladesh, Nepal, akistan and Srilanka besides representatives of different media units from India participated in the colloquium.

The group that discussed on safeguarding human rights by media had also called for strengthening partnerships by enabling a dialogue between the media and the civil society to understand each other in needs and constraints.

It had also reitereated the need for widening the constituency base from which the media practitioners are dawn, and sought encouraging Dalit or tribal Journalists to voice the situation of the community or seek to bridge the gap.
Another group that debated on ”Empowerment of Women: Are Media an Aid or Impediment?” under the chairmanship of Pakistan’s resident editor of The Post Mr Nusrat Javeed, asked the journalism schools to monitor editorial content, both news and entertainment slots to judge how women and women issues had been portrayed.

Apart from forwarding their findings to relevant media units and creating follow up cells, the media establishments should hold in-house and mandatory sessions on gender sensitisation besides drawing a code of conduct on covering gender issues.
The group had further favoured introduction of internship
programmes for young women journalists to develop professional skills and capacity building.
The group on ”Portraying Poverty: Are Media Failing the Poor?” chaired by Inam Ahmed (Bangladesh), said media were not failing the poor, but they certainly had not done enough to their rescue.

”Hence the media should now seriously think of diverting its
manpower and money from lighter aspects of the society (fashion, entertainment, sports) to serious aspects like poverty,” it said.

Each media house should appoint at least one full time reporter covering development programmes and issues of the poor. The course of media coverage should cease to be event-based. It should be guided by bottom-top approach, not the reverse.
Apart from training media persons on poverty coverage, a
platform be created for South Asia journalists for poverty discourse and training to help better coverage, the group recommended.

The group that discussed the Right to Information-vis-a-the role of the media under the chairmanship of former director of the press institute of India Ajit Bhattacharjea, pleaded for incorporating the Right to Information in respective constititions as a fundamental
right.

Asking all countries of South Asia to enable their citizens to
get proper access to Information,the experts urged the Government of India not to amend the RTI 2005. Rather, it should come forward to make it more vibrant to make easy and better access to information,it said.

The experts asked all the media institutions and journalists of outh Asia to recognize the power of the RTI. They should take it as their own issue and come forward to sensitise the society for greater transparency.

Journalists should utilize the Act for obtaining the news and the media educational institutions should include the Right to
Information as an exclusive paper and conduct research on related issues.

Various kinds of research should be conducted and promoted on the status of the access to information in South Asian countries and the journalists be trained regarding the concept of transparency and uses of RTI.

The group that discussed about the ”Media Scene: Increasing Competition and Declining Standards?” headed by NDTV journalist Vinod Dua, felt the need for training of journalists for skill development and capacity building.
”Training may be arranged on specialized areas and issues to be reported. To upgrade the overall standard of journalism, training can be organised on content – its selection prioritization and presentation, so that an atmosphere of value based journalism can continue in the era of market driven media,” it said.

Other recommendations included differentiating Media from the Press and Journalism, campaigning for media awareness/ literacy/education, revival of development journalism, promotion of the community press, increase in use of new media outlets/ ICT (internet/ blog etc.) and government support for software development for
journalism in regional language before it is too late.

The also said the Journalists – irrespective of the media – be encouraged by management to go round the country atleast for 2 weeks in a year without the press tag and facilities to understand the real India.
Launching of a news feature syndicate by AIIMC or any other agency to provide development stories to provincial/district level publications besides preparing a development journalism manual to help the new entrants, initiating active media literacy programmes in all the South Asian countries, giving importance to development-related films and their exchange amongst journalists from South Asian countries were other recommendations.

Earlier, Mr Ajit Bhattacharjea released a reporters’ handbook on ‘Media and Law” edited by Times of India’s senior legal correspondent Ms Swati Deshpande in presence of AMIC chairman Vijay Menon and FES senior media advisor Mr Rajeswar Dyal and ICG director M E Rajaretnam. The book was published by the AMIC-India and the UNESCO.//EOM//

Dating on SMS in Tribal Mizoram in North-East

ybalu — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 13:29:32 +0000

BY: R Satyanarayana in Mizoram
Speed dating is passe, now silent mobile Short
Message Service (SMS) is the next ‘in’ thing among the youth in Mizoram.

According to the Mizo ‘Gen Next’, it’s one of the best ways of finding their Mr or Miss Right. And hundreds of next generation are signing up for silent parties.

These Mizo youths are too busy to use conventional ways to find their partners and find it easier to lose their inhibitions when they write their feelings down.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Airtel are the only service providers in the region, helping users, especially youngsters find dates, keep in touch with friends, share photos, and update their blogs, all via cell phone.

It (mobile dating) took off in Mizoram, especially in the capital city just a couple of years back, when the mobile made its debut in the state. The youngters were getting tired of speed dating and trying to get a glimpse of someone special trudging down the streets.

With a mobile subscriber base of just little more than 40,000,which includes both BSNL and Airtel, in the capital city alone, the mobile has succeeded in touching a chord among the love-struck teenagers.

”You might put something in a text which you wouldn’t dream of saying directly to someone”, Zodin Mawia, an ‘upwardly mobile’ cellphone user told UNI.

”My bill seems to be shooting up since I got into the habit of SMSing, he said, adding ”I spend more than than Rs 1000 per month only on SMS.” ”Mobile phone dating not only works like a normal one, but also gives us a chance to know more about our date before the real introduction takes place and that too without stepping out”, he pointed out.

The service’s popularity is also skyrocketing as BSNL and Airtel charge a mere 90 paise for a SMS.

”Now-a-days, it looks like exam time, especially for these college students. People sit with heads bowed, lost in thought as they press the keys in the handset and formulate their text for dating”, said Malsangi, a mother of two.

”If it is decent dating, I dont mind seeing these young
generation getting hooked to this”, Malsangi pointed out, adding the newest trend has outclassed the online chating through desktops, especially in Mizoram.

Lalthangliana, a nokia dealer in the city said ”the mobile dating has something interesting and it become as a part of these folks”.

The mobile phone dating, however, has its flip side too as many youngsters here complain that the person they met on the date was not up to their mark.

Another reason was non-approval from the Church in the
predominatly Christian state. All the church authorities were unhappy with the latest trend.

According to BSNL DGM C Lalmachhuana and Airtel NE corporate incharge Anguli Chittranjan, the company officials took extra care in verifying the identity of the subscribers before alloting a mobile connection.

Providing connection to an under-aged is a big No-No.//EOM//

Posted by Dr.Y.Bala Murali Krishna.