Formulation of Youth Policy

‘Make youth Media educated, informed’

BHUBANESWAR: A consultation on Youth and Media was held here on Tuesday jointly by the Information and Public Relation Department, Department of Sports and Youth Services and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). This was part of a series of State and district-level consultations across various themes with different focus groups towards the formulation of the Odisha State Youth Policy, 2013.

The experts said the youth in Media should be guided and protected for the development of the society. The youth of other sectors should be media educated for their active participation with the State and country’s development.

Journalists suggested the State Government should inspire the youth pursuing in Journalism and Mass Communication to work in the Information and Public Relation Department of the State by creating reservation for them. The scope would attract the youth towards Media, they added.

Senior Journalist Arun Patnaik said the Government should organise workshops to train up the youths entering into Media sector so that they could understand the core issues of the State and address the problems of the common people in the State. The youth should be educated to give voice to voiceless using Media, he added.

Journalist Rajaram Satpathy said more and more highly educated trained youths are entering into the Media sector than the past years. For the development of the country or State, the Government should create a congenial atmosphere for the working journalists he added.

“The Government should make vibrant to the media sector by giving up the ‘Keep the Media away’ attitude as most of the youth in the State are watching them through different media,” Satpathy said, adding, “The youth could change the fate of the State and country for which they need to be properly informed and media savvy.”    

As many as 50 participants from the Media industry and students of various Journalism colleges participated in the consultation and gave their inputs toward the formulation of the youth policy.