Manipur journalists wish to be conduits for media exchange

Imphal, Sep. 15 (EMN): Ten months after holding a two day inter-regional media interaction programme between India and Myanmar in Imphal, a journalist’s team from Manipur expressed their desire to improve the relationship between the media fraternity across the border and conduct exchange programmes.

This was conveyed by Manipur journalists’ team, who are currently (in Myanmar) on a Directorate of Information and Publicity Relations (IPR) Manipur sponsored first ever press conducted tour in a foreign country to visit their Myanmar counterparts stationed at Myanmar’s biggest commercial city Yangon on Thursday, sources said.

The team headed by IPR Director H Balkrishna and Convenor of State Level Committee for Actualisation of Act East Policy RK Shivachandra on the 5th day of their visit in Myanmar, had an interaction with the Myanmar journalists at a Yangon hotel.

Sharing about the purpose of the visit, Director Balkrishna said that the Media persons in Manipur had travelled to most of the Indian cities and experienced the familiarities.

“But they never had the experience of visiting a foreign country. So after the opening of the land route with Myanmar, we decided to go to Myanmar to explore more between the two neighbouring countries”, he said. “This is a new experience and a new taste for the media persons.”

Inviting the media, cultural troupes etc from Myanmar in the Sangai Festival, an upcoming annual festival in Manipur in November 2018, he also offered free of cost training for the interested budding journalists from Myanmar at the DIPR state institute of journalism in Imphal.

In his remark, the Convenor of State Level Act East Policy RK Shivachandra opined that better regional cooperation between Manipur and Myanmar media can help in growing economy of the region.

Sharing a similar sentiment, Dr Zaw Than of Myanmar Press Council (MPC) who had already visited Manipur to attend inter-regional media interaction programme between India and Myanmar in Imphal in November 2017, expressed that such interaction and exchange programmes will enhance the economic corridor of the region. He also expressed the desire to train Myanmar journalists in India. Vice President Dr Myo Thant Tyn of MPC also spoke on the occasion.

In the inter-regional media interaction in November last year, the journalists’ bodies of India and Myanmar have recommended supporting the implementation of India’s Act East Policy and a visa-free regime particularly for the media fraternity of these countries. India’s Act East Policy came into existence in the year 1981 as Look East Policy. With the coming of Narendra Modi’s government in the centre, it was re-christened as the Act East Policy in 2014.

They also recommended improving the relationship between the two countries and conducting more media exchange programs in future besides working together for better connectivity in terms of road, railways, air and maritime communication, i.e., better transport facilities between the two countries.