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23 Mar, 2013

India Holds National Editors Conference on Social and Infrastructure Issues

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Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, 22-March, 2013 – The Press Information Bureau, New Delhi is organizing a two day National Editors’ Conference on Social and Infrastructure issues from March 23, 2013. The Conference will be inaugurated by the Finance Minister Mr P. Chidambaram at Vigyan Bhawan.

The two day Conference will deliberate on crucial policy decisions, success stories and achievements of the Government. The various sessions during the two day duration will be addressed by ministers and key officials representing the core social and infrastructure ministries of the Government. Union Ministers of Rural Development, Communications and IT, Women and Child Development, Minority Affairs, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation will address the various sessions of the Conference. Senior officials from Railway Board and Ministry of Labour and Employment and Ministry of Information & Broadcasting are also expected to address the Conference.

The Conference will be attended by leading representatives of the regional press comprising of Senior Editors and Chief of Bureaus along with local beat correspondents covering the sessions being addressed by concerned Ministries. The interaction is expected to provide a platform to the media representatives to understand the implementation of crucial policy decisions in the social and infrastructure sector. It will also provide an opportunity for the various ministries to understand the limitations / gaps from a media perspective on the implementation of schemes and programmes. About 70 editors / journalists are likely to attend the 2-day Conference.

The 2-day deliberations are part of PIB’s effort for enhancing information dissemination at the regional level as an outreach strategy. The focus will be on development issues that has promoted inclusive growth across the country. The Conference is a continuation of PIB’s endeavor of organizing the national deliberations as an annual event on the social and infrastructure sector. Over the last few years, the Press Information Bureau has organized the Conference on similar lines at Aizwal, Srinagar, Guwahati and Puducherry.

In another development, Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Mr Manish Tewari has said that taking into account the potential of the growing media sector and the flow of information in the news segment, there existed a case for more wire news agencies being established across the media landscape in the country. The potential was tremendous as these agencies facilitated information flow at the sub regional, regional and national level.

The Minister stated this while speaking at the 52nd Anniversary Celebrations of United News of India, here today. The increase in number of news agencies would not only enable local based news being highlighted at the national level, it would also enable such agencies to balance news dissemination at the national and local level. Taking into account the diversity of information dissemination, such mechanisms would enable local issues being highlighted as prominently as those at the national level.

Elaborating further, Mr Tewari said that there was an urgent need to outline sustainable revenue models. Quoting the instance of the digitization process the Minister said it was an attempt to bring about transparency and a long term sustainable process in the broadcasting sector which would help all stakeholders. The revenue models would also have to take into account the parameters that were addressing different audiences with the emergence of new media platforms and instant communication mechanisms.