INDIA REITERATES COMMITMENT TO AFGHANISTAN
RECONSTRUCTION
India has reiterated its commitment to the sovereignty
and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and would continue to
play a constructive role in Afghanistan.
Inaugurating a Foundation Course in Journalism
for a group of 15 Afghan journalists at the Indian Institute of
Mass Communications, here today the Minister of Information and
Broadcasting, Smt. Sushma Swaraj said that the forces of terrorism
are still active in our region, and pose a threat to the peace
and progress of humanity. The media have an important role and
responsibility, in fighting and isolating such forces of terror.
The battle is to be fought by the journalists, not with guns and
tanks, but with their pens and words.
Smt. Swaraj said that the journalists must contribute
in the reconstruction and re-building process. The newspapers
in Afghanistan, would not only inform the citizens of the country,
of the initiatives and programmes of the Afghanistan Government,
they would also comment on, what needs to be done further.
The Information and Broadcasting Minister said
that the special course now designed will help equip the Afghan
journalists to face the challenges of the modern and rapidly changing
world. They will be exposed to different and newly emerging technologies
both in electronic and print media.
The Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, Shri
Pawan Chopra said that the electronic media, especially TV plays
a great role in initiating thought and action through information.
He said, India has undergone a revolution in electronic media
and the friends from Afghanistan must make the best use of their
exposure in this field.
The course is designed to develop a trained manpower
to meet challenges of the times and more so when the image and
the events in the country need to be projected in right perspective
and development and reconstruction efforts of the Government need
media and information support. Fifteen journalists and Government
Media Officers are attending the two months course.
The Course is basic in nature and aims at imparting
conceptual and operational skills in relation to the entire process
of news writing and presentation both in the newspapers and the
electronic media. The objective of the course is not only to train
them in all the professional aspects of journalism but also to
equip them to handle the national and international media besides
managing media relations of the Government in an effective manner.
Enhancement of computer related skills would be another essential
part of the course.
Another objective of the training programme would
be to impart training to participants to enable them take up jobs
of correspondents of foreign news organizations. The course is
adequately designed so that skills can be imparted to report economic
and socio-cultural development and processes of change. The participants
will be trained in all the aspects of communication theory and
research methods besides international communication. They would
be given inputs on global media and political, economic, social
and cultural trends of post cold war world order.
The Afghan media was isolated in past few years
and was not able to develop at a time when information revolution
set in. The country has been undergoing one or the other kind
of civil war for over two decades. Now with the advent of new
scenario, development of media has become imperative. The Afghan
Government needs a lot of media and information support to meet
the challenges.
