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Understanding Parliament
Harsh Jhunjhunwala
The familiarization program for the media person of the country with the Parliamentary Processes and Procedures is being taken up by the Lok Sabha Secretariat under the aegis of Bureau of Parliamentary Studies and Training (BPST). The program for the media scribes from the states of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura were organised from the 16th to 18th December. In total 38 scribes and officials from the respective state Assemblies participated in the Familiarization Program.
The idea of the program was started by the Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan . During her interaction with the scribes from the four states she highlighted the need for such trips. The very idea of such a trip was coined in Indore when during her press conference a scribe said to her that when he had not seen the Parliament how he would write about the same. Also many eminent personalities interacted with the scribes. The opportunity provided by the BPST had proved fruitful for the scribes who also got a firsthand visit to the Lok Sabha and could see how the house functions. Mostly the negative gets highlighted and the positive is lost. During our brief view of the session one of our fellow scribes Mr J K Choudhury from Dainik Assam observed the following. BHagwan Man, Member of Parliament from the Aam Aadmi Party was shouting slogans against the NDA government right infront of the speaker when suddenly he lost his voice. Seeing this, the Prime Minister of our Country called upon him and offered his water to drink. This was a perfect case of true Parliamentarian Spirit and democracy which did not find much space in national media. During the whole event many distinguished personalities interacted with the scribes. Few of their quotes are listed below.
“Today news mix with views has resulted in the sacred news taking a back seat which has led to increase in the negativeness” – Dr Vinay Sahasrebuddhe, Director General ( Research & Training) R M Prabodhini
“Opponents must have a say and ruling must show the way is the spirit of Parliament”, Mr P A Sangma Former Speaker Lok Sabha, MP.
“Maturity of a State is judged by the maturity of its media”, Mr Kiren Rijjiju, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs.
“We see the ministers of bigger states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharastra their message goes to their people but our northeast it is very unfortunate. Hardly does our message reach our people in northeast India”, Dr Jiten Choudhury , Tripura MP, Lok Sabha.
“What you write today will be part of the history tomorrow”, S S Aluwaliah, Vice President of BJP, Darjeeling West Bengal MP, Lok Sabha.
