India and Afghanistan to Strengthen Cooperation in the Field of Media and Communication
Afghan Delegation Calls on Secretary (I&B)
A delegation from the Ministry of Information & Culture, Government of Afghanistan, called on Secretary (I&B), Shri Raghu Menon here today. Headed by Dr. Mobarez Rasheidi, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Information & Culture, the delegation’s visit comes in the backdrop of the “Memorandum of Understanding on Information and Broadcasting sectors” signed between the two countries in May this year.
During the discussions, Secretary (I&B), Shri Raghu Menon, assured all possible help from the Ministry to the Government of Afghanistan in areas of capacity development, technical expertise in running infrastructural projects in the broadcasting sector and training for journalists at IIMC.
On the issue of providing technical expertise in the broadcasting and information sectors, Shri Menon stated that the Ministry could provide technical expertise by sending professionals to Afghanistan to draw policy initiatives in critical areas. During the discussions, a detailed overview of the policy initiatives undertaken by this Ministry was also put before the visiting delegation.
Dr. Mobarez Rashedi, in his remarks, gave a detailed account of the initiatives of the Government of India which benefited Afghanistan in the recent past. He specifically mentioned the State of Art studio for Radio and Broadcast facilities which had been set up by the Government of India at Jalalabad. He appreciated the help provided by the Government of India in facilitating the up-linking and down-linking facilities via INSAT 3-A to radio and TV national broadcasters in Afghanistan.
During the discussions, the Afghanistan delegation also apprised Secretary (I&B) regarding the work-plan that was under consideration for taking forward the broad agreement reached with the Government of India in May this year.
The Deputy Minister also visited Press Information Bureau (PIB) and met the Principal Director General (M&C) Smt Neelam Kapur. The experiences regarding information dissemination and publicity was discussed at length during the meeting. PIB promised to offer all the necessary assistance for providing training to the Afghan Government Information Department Officials.
The Deputy Minister was accompanied by Dr Zareen Anzoor, DG, Radio TV, Afghanistan, Dr Nejeebullah Bayan, Head of Internal News, Bakhtar News Agency, Government of Afghanistan and other senior officials.
The MoU signed between the two countries in May covers a wide range of issues. Prominent being policy and strategy development, project management, financial management and procurement processes. The focus of the MoU is on capacity development covering critical areas which are as follows:
• Development of media policies and strategies.
• Development of independent and free press in Afghanistan.
• Identification of areas of reforms and restructuring in the field of press and media and implementation thereof.
• Development and standardization of media related programmes, graphic designing, production of documentaries and films and other related areas.
• Production and broadcasting activities of Radio and Television of Afghanistan (RTA) including content management.
• Marketing of TV and Radio programmes for revenue generation.
A range of activities have been conducted by the Ministry in Afghanistan. These include: training by Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) to various Afghan Journalists. Annually IIMC is training several Afghan journalists sent by the Indian Embassy Kabul. India in the recent past has helped build the full fledged Radio And Television Afghanistan (RTA) Stations at Jalalabad Afghanistan. As part of the capacity building technical process, India is also providing satellite uplinking facilities for the state owned television RTA. BECIL representatives in Afghanistan have earlier helped on various projects to RTA. A process has also been initiated to facilitate the flow of films from India into Afghanistan.
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