Minister Sharma calls for prioritizing development issues over political agenda

Kathmandu, Dec 17: Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Rekha Sharma, has said despite the pressing need to focus on the agenda of development and prosperity, the nation is still entangled in political matters.     

Speaking at the 58th-anniversary celebrations of 'The Rising Nepal,' an English national broadsheet of the Gorkhapatra Corporation, today, the Minister underlined the importance of prioritizing development and prosperity issues over political ones.

"We are still gripped by political matters, and it's time for political parties and related organizations to realize this," she said, highlighting the need to move ahead based on the changes brought about by IT development and increased social awareness.     

According to her, it is also the role of media to convey citizens' needs aspirations, and grievances with the government and inform the citizens of government activities." It is necessary to prove it false that State-owned media are government mouthpiece."     

She urged the media to amplify people's voices, contributing to the increase in social awareness.     

The Minister took time to say that State-owned media, particularly print media, would find challenges to compete in this digital era if their contents are not strengthened, advising media falling into this category to focus on the production of specialized content. Minister Sharma expressed the view that print media can survive by ensuring sectoral specialized and leading content.     

In view of rapid youth migration under various contexts, she said media are expected to discourage the trend and raise hopes for doing something within the country itself. She advised the media to cover issues about unsafe foreign migration and employment, and its consequences.     

Communications and Information Technology Secretary, Krishna Bahadur Raut, said the Gorakhapatra Corporation should be able to progress ahead as a capable public corporation. He also stressed paying attention to the production of quality news, enhancing the capacity of journalists working in the Corporation's various publications.     

"The Rising Nepal has a crucial role in establishing the true understanding and narrative about Nepal in the international arena. Issues as the economic and social topics within the country, the issues that Nepal has to raise as a least developed country, climate change issues and the digital divide issue, should be raised in the upcoming days," Secretary Raut said.     

Executive Chairman of Gorakhapatra Sansthan, Bishnu Prasad Subedi opined that the growing use of social sites in recent times has added to the challenge to journalism. "We have not been able to make the general public understand what journalism is and who the journalists are. We are weak in terms of media literacy regarding how to seek true information. This is a matter of challenge for us," Chair Subedi added.     

He also urged the government for support, saying the Gorakhapatra Corporation is very weak in terms of infrastructure. "The physical infrastructure of the Corporation that has been serving the government and doing a favour to it is not good. The Corporation's building located at Bhugolpark was marked as 'risky' after the 2015 earthquake, but the employees are compelled to work from this old building. I request the government to assist in the reconstruction of the Corporation's building," the Sansthan Chair pleaded.     

He also informed that the income from advertisements and sales of the Corporation's publications have increased in recent years.     

According to him, The Rising Nepal, the first broadsheet English national daily of Nepal, remains a prestigious school of English language journalism and it has been playing a significant role in spreading Nepal's culture throughout the world.     

Corporation's General Manager Lal Bahadur Airee said Gorakhapatra and The Rising Nepal dailies were established amidst special political conditions and these publications have their unique style and objective.     

Stating that the dimensions and techniques of journalism are changing in recent times, he underscored timely improvements in our journalism as well. "It is necessary to change in our understanding of journalism as it is only giving information. A situation is coming in which journalism itself might not be there if we fail to take cognizance of what citizens want. We will be in for a challenge if we fail to catch up with the changing dimension of journalism," General Manager Airee said.     

In his view, the print medium is on the decline at present as digital technology advances and digital media expands. (RSS)