74th Information & Public Relations Day celebrates

IT News
Imphal, Nov 1:
Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), Government of Manipur today celebrated the 74th Information & Public Relations day today at its office complex at Nityapat Chuthek here in Imphal.
On the occasion, Chief Editor of Kanglapao Evening Daily, P. Ibochouba has been provided financial assistance of Rs. One Lakh under the Manipur State Journalists’ Welfare Scheme.
IPR Minister, Dr. Sapam Ranjan Singh, who attended the IPR Day celebration as Chief Guest has appealed to the journalist fraternity to publish news with proper verification. He told these as the present trends are facing serious confusion with the growth and the misused of Social media by some individuals. The Minister appealed to the DIPR to digitize all the records as the present technology keeps changing. He suggested it as digitization may enable journalists to access the records in an easy way.
The Minister said that the Information center in New Delhi is not satisfying and needs to be empowered as the government has already provided adequate infrastructure already. He said that only two staff are deployed at the Information Center at New Delhi. He said that the Directorate needs to put some ideas so that the Information Center in New Delhi can be functional and utilized to disseminate the information related to the state. The Minister further appealed the journalist to suggest ideas to improve the functioning of the DIPR.
Commissioner of the IPR, M. Harekrishna, who presided over the function stressed on the challenges that the DIPR is facing today. The Commissioner of the IPR said that at present there are many grey areas on what would be the responsibility and duty of the DIPR. He said there is much technology at present to reach the motto ‘last mile connectivity. There is a directives from the Prime Minister to all the Chief Ministers of every state to utilize mobile technology to make sure that all programme and the initiatives of the government reaches to all the people of the country. Harekrishna said that the department is still confused on whether this should be the responsibility of the DIPR or the IT department as it is unethical to handle the personal account on social media of each minister or MLAs. He however said that official account at Social Media of Ministers may be possible to handle by the department. He also said that there are challenges on how to face or check the high Tech medium of mass media channels.
Regarding the regulations framed for the welfare of the journalists, Hare Krishna said that he felt to review some of the regulations with the changing of time. Whether the e-newspaper should be approved as a news channel or not is still yet to be affirmed. On the other hand, the Commissioner also said that there are regulations framed for journalists where benefits provided could not be entertained to a working journalist who is above 60 years. However, many journalists in the state are already above sixty years and some had even crossed the age. So, whether the benefit should be provided or not become another big challenge.
Harekrishna further said that the role of the DIPR should not be confined to the distribution of government departments’ advertisements or government releases. He said the DIPR should rather focus on spreading news or information which focuses more on the idea of Manipur. He also appeals to take strict actions against employees of the DIPR who had not handed over the files that are pending with him to or her predecessors before relieving from the post. On the other, Harekrishna also appealed the journalist to suggest and discussed about the issues that are being faced by the journalists fraternities of the state.
AMWJU President W Shamjai, EGM President Kh. Khogendra, MHJU president Peter Adani and Director of the IPR Balkrishna also attended as the guest of Honours during the function.