Guwahati : \u201cA vigilant media is a prerequisite to keep a democratic society robust and healthy. Media must make the government accountable before the public and constructive criticism is necessary to a keep the government on track. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the media persons always stayed at the forefront and did not shy away from their duties to get news for people, even at the risk of their health.\u201d Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said while speaking at the state level programme of National Press Day 2020 organised by Information and Public Relations Department, Govt of
Assam at Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra on Monday.
Admitting that media sector has lots of problems and COVID-19 pandemic also impacted it negatively, along with other sectors, the Chief Minister said that state government has been taking various steps for the welfare of the journalist fraternity and would launch more such schemes in the future as well. The Chief Minister also referred to his visits to 36 districts during
the trying times of Coronavirus induced lockdown and appreciated the role played by media personnel which he witnessed during those visits.
Along with health department, which had the most crucial responsibility during the entire pandemic situation and other agencies like police, PHED, fire brigade, power department etc, media personnel also played key part in dissemination of information among the public and acted as a bridge between the government and the public, Sonowal said. He also urged the
media to curb incidences of fear mongering and fake news during crisis situations.
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s motto of sabka sath, sabka vikash, sabka viswas, Sonowal highlighted the visionary steps taken by Prime Minister to develop all corners of the country equally and how transparency has been brought into the government system, rooting
out middlemen in implementation of government schemes. He thanked the media for its support to the state government in the crusade against corruption and urged the media to highlight the state government\u2019s initiatives to protect the natural environment of Assam and motivate the youngsters to contribute in this mission.
Media Adviser to the Chief Minister Hrishikesh Goswami also spoke on the occasion and referred to the adage of \u2018pen is mightier than the sword\u2019 to drive home his point that media must exercise caution while using its power as it has tremendous responsibility of guiding the society as well. He also appreciated the role played by media personnel during COVID19
pandemic and paid tributes to those journalists who laid down their lives in the line of duty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guwahati : \u201cA vigilant media is a prerequisite to keep a democratic society robust and healthy. Media must make the government accountable before the public and constructive criticism is necessary to a keep the government on track. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the media persons always stayed at the forefront and did not shy away from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-page"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/netimes.news\/assam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}