Press Information Bureau, Government of India in collaboration with District Information centres Doda and Kishtwar organized a media workshop “Vartalap” at conference hall of new DC office, Kishtwar with an aim to act as a direct interface between PIB’s Regional, branch offices and the journalists working at district level.The workshop was part of PIB’s media outreach strategy with the aim of establishing direct contact with working journalists.District Development Commissioner, Angrez Singh Rana who was the chief guest on the occasion held interactive session with journalist fraternity from Kishtwar and Doda districts and sought valuable feedback from them on various matters.He urged upon media persons to work with utmost sincerity and dedication without any biased approach. He urged them to also pay attention to developmental stories of various departments in the district.He maintained that Media awareness is important at grass root level and reiterated that media should not entirely focus on negative issues. “Constructive criticism is welcome, but at the same time the positive aspects should not be ignored,” he expressed.He said that journalism should act as a bridge between people and government. He said that media has a vital role to highlight different projects and schemes of the government so that the benefits reach to the deserving people.The proceedings of the workshop were conducted by Sunil Koul, Media and Communication Officer, Incharge Press Information Bureau (PIB) Jammu who stressed upon the need to give preference to proactive developmental journalism in the region.Special sessions about various nuances of developmental journalism and role of a local journalist vis-a-vis development in rural areas were also held in the workshop, which was addressed by a number of senior and experienced working journalists.Among others SSP Kishtwar, Abrar Choudhary, District Information Officer Doda-Kishtwar, Imran Naik, CTO Circle Doda, Gyas-ul-Haq were the experts who spoke during the workshop.