Minister for Information, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali today asked the Department of Information & Public Relations (DIPR) to diversify its activities by organizing regular trainings and workshops to equip the media students with core skills."As the media and communication sector becomes ever more diverse and dynamic, specialized degrees in the field of media and communication studies are also growing in popularity," the Minister said while interacting with the media students at the 'Documentary Film Making' workshop being organized by DIPR at Media Complex here.He said the media professionals need skills that are essential for the jobs of today and the future and not for the jobs of the past. "In this endeavor I think the DIPR can and should play a proactive role by organizing frequent interactions of the experts with the media students in J&K," he said and added that the Department has already embarked on this mission and it now needs to be sustained.The Minister was informed that the 12-day workshop began on 3 October 2017 and would culminate till 15 October.A group of 23 students of the Media Studies Departments of University of Kashmir, Islamic University of Science and Technology Awantipora, Government College for Women, M A Road Srinagar, Govt Degree College Baramulla, Govt Degree College Anantnag, besides, two freelance media practitioners from Gurgaon are attending the workshop.
The resource persons for the workshop include noted filmmaker and teacher Gautam Chakraborty, and his assistant Saikat Mullick. They briefed the Minister about the various aspects of film making that are getting discussed with the participating students in the workshop.Appreciating DIPR for undertaking such novel academic activities, the Minister announced that the media students after finishing with the workshop would be assigned fully-funded documentary projects by the Department of Information for hands-on training.The Minister was highly impressed by the enthusiasm of the participating students who expressed their gratitude to the Information Department for providing them an opportunity to learn entirely new concepts about documentary film making. They expressed their desire that similar kind of workshops and trainings for media students should be conducted by the Department in future also.Impressing upon the students for maintaining a positive outlook, the Minister said students during their study days see various challenges. Sometimes the challenges are economical while at times they may be political, he said. However, facing and overcoming these challenges is what develops a strong personality in the person. He said it is these challenges which help in leading in future generations.During the interaction, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali was flanked by the Director of Information Muneer-ul-Islam, Joint Director Information (Headquarters), Abdul Majid Zargar, Deputy Director Information (PR) Sheikh Zahoor and others.