Indian Forest Service men learning to handle media
Thirty officers from 17 states are currently undergoing a five-day training at XIM Bhubaneswar, reports Soumyajit Pattnaik.
Concerned at the 'negative coverage' of forest, wildlife and environment related issues in the media, Ministry of Environment and Forests has sponsored a training programme for Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers.
Thirty officers from 17 states are currently going through the five-day training programme at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) to learn the "art of interacting with the print and electronic media."
Prof Niraj Kumar, XIMB faculty member and training coordinator, said, "The aim is to train forest officers to understand and develop collaborative relations with the print and electronic media."
"Besides the basics in media management, participants are being trained in understanding the role of media in forest management and civil administration, media expectations, art of crafting news, facing the media with good and bad news and making media a partner in development administration".
Sidharth Tripathy, a divisional forest officer from Jharkhand participating in the programme, told HT: " Most forest officers work in remote areas and they are not able to highlight their activities. I have learnt that sharing information will be more beneficial than holding it back."
B.N. Jha, a 1979 batch IFS officer from Bihar, said, "Through this training, I have come to realise that it's better not to avoid the media. We need to develop permanent contacts with the media."
R.R. Sahay, an IFS officer presently based in Nagpur, said he was currently working on redesigning the department's website so that more information can be provided.
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