Media workshop on 'Tracking MPs amd MLAs' concludes
A media workshop titled 'Tracking the activities of MPs and MLAs' was organized at Guwahati Press Club today (September 16, 2008), where variuos aspects of media reporting on the functioning of legislative bodies and legislators were discussed.
Organized by PRS Legislative Research, a New Delhi based NGO, in association with Guwahati Press Club, the workshop also focused on highlighting the activities of MLAs and MPs using authentic information sources.
Nearly 30 journalists representing the print, web and audio-visual media participated the programme, where Chakshu Roy and Mr Madhavan attended as resource persons.
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, official analyst of PRS, adding that it might helps them to track and research issues related to legislatures, and also write series of articles on the issue.
Before Guwahati, the PRS Legislative Research conducted a workshop at Patna in partnership with the Dainik Jagaran, a leading Hindi daily and the Population Foundation of India. 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.