NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni urged the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) to give greater share of advertisements to the electronic media, small and medium newspapers, and the Urdu press.
Soni said she often received complaints that the print media was getting a larger share as compared to the electronic media. Similarly, she said the Urdu press had particularly shown phenomenal growth and needed to be helped.
Addressing a function where she released the official calendar for 2011 of the Government of India brought out by the DAVP, she noted that the calendar was on the theme of “India’s Endangered Species.” She said the purpose of bringing out the calendar was to sensitise people on the impact of environment and climate change on matters concerning the endangered species within the country. Each month would focus on a single endangered species.
In order to sensitise the people of the country on the subject, she said the calendar was being sent to all Panchayats in the country, all Eco-Clubs in schools across the country funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and Schools under “Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan” and “Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan” funded by the Human Resource Development Ministry. Approximately 200,000 schools would be covered. A total of 1.2 million calendars were being printed for distribution.
The endangered species covered each month separately include: the Tiger, the Asiatic lion, the Vulture, the Indian Elephant, the Indian One Horned Rhino, the Swamp Deer or Barahsingha, the Black Necked Crane, the Western Tragopan or the Western Horned Tragopan, the Snow Leopard, the Oliver Ridley Turtle, the Golden Langoor and the Red Panda. There is also a paragraph about each of these creatures. The photographs have been contributed by the eminent wildlife filmmaker Mike Pandey, who is a three-time winner of the Green Oscar – the world’s highest award for environmental films.
The Minister mentioned that the Wall Calendar brought out by the Ministry for the year 2010 was based on the theme “Empowerment of Women through Flagship and other programmes of the Government”. Each month dealt with one flagship programme of the government and depicted the role of women in it. The Wall Calendar for 2010 was distributed to all Panchayats in the country in bi-lingual and regional languages format.
DAVP Director General Frank Noronha outlined the initiatives taken by DAVP in the past one year. He specifically mentioned the key initiatives in the AV Sector, IT & digital initiatives and the steps taken for streamlining the empanelment procedure of newspapers and magazines including implementing the recommendations of the Rate Structure Committee. He touched upon the initiatives being currently studied including mobile telephony and SMS.
