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Media workshop on 'Tracking MPs amd MLAs'

By Nava Thakuria |
A media workshop titled 'Tracking the activities of MPs and MLAs' has been organized at Guwahati Press Club on September 16, 2008. Organized by PRS Legislative Research, a New Delhi based NGO, in association with Guwahati Press Club, the workshop will focus on tracking the functioning of legislative bodies and legislators, as well as, highlighting their activities using authentic information sources.

The workshop, beginning at 11 am, is open for Assam based journalists representing the print, web and audio-visual media. Interested media persons are requested to register their names at the office of the press club as not more than 25 journalists will be entertained for the programme.

Mentionable that PRS Legislative Research is an independent research initiative aiming to 'strengthen the legislative debate by making it better informed, more transparent and participatory'. Founded in September 2005, PRS is the first initiative of its kind in the country.

"Journalists at the state and district level play an important role in providing information about the functioning of Legislative bodies and Legislators to constituents. They also highlight regional and local issues being debated in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies.

However, state and district based journalists often find it difficult to access information about the working of legislative bodies. Here we try to engage those journalists in accessing the information about the working of Legislators and Parliament/ State Assemblies," said Chakshu Roy, official analyst of PRS, adding that it would help them to track and research issues related to legislatures, and also write series of articles on the issue.

PRS Legislative Research had recently conducted a workshop at Patna in partnership with the Dainik Jagaran, a leading Hindi daily and the Population Foundation of India. Earlier similar programmes were organized at Panjim in partnership with the Goa Legislative Assembly, at Ahemdabad in association with the Gujrat Media Club and at Ranchi with support from Manthan, a local media organization.

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Senior journalist based in Guwahati.
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