IMPHAL, Oct 17 - A small group of journalists representing Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka has unanimously floated a networking platform for journalists under the name South Asian Media Alliance on environment to propagate and network environment and development issues.
The platform was formed at the end of the four-day media colloquium organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as part of World Sustainable Development Summit in New Delhi recently.
The idea of the colloquium was to build capacity amongst journalists to consistently and efficiently project sustainable development issues.
The journalists were given a unique opportunity to interact with leading environment and climate change experts, industry and corporate leaders, who are putting to practice sustainable goals as commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The journalists were also given a special opportunity to interact with deputy head of European Union Caesar Onestini and Henriette, counselor, environment energy and climate change, Randal Newton, vice president, Enterprise Engineering, Ingersoll Rand.
Apart from these, the 20 environment and climate change journalists also interacted with award winning journalist Anita Pratap, a former war correspondent of CNN, who is presently writing on issues confronting climate change and senior journalist Nitin Sethi who has covered several global negotiations and agreements on climate change and environment.
The team of journalists led by IANS UN correspondent Arul Louis and Gitanjali Aiyar, communication consultant with TERI. Aiyar is known to be India�s pioneer in presenting news in English on TV, who was associated with national broadcaster Doordarshan for nearly three decades.
Three journalists from North East were also part of this colloquium, inluding this correspondent, Syeda Ambia Zahan and Saidul Khan.
�Being a regional leader, India has more responsibility in securing healthy environment for billions of people living in this part of the globe�, said Harisharan Lamichhane, News Editor Radio Nepal.
He also said that organisations like TERI would play a vital role in future. �Being a media community, it becomes our responsibility to act as a watchdog on this global agenda and to bridge the communication gap between people and the policymakers�, he added.
�TERI�s initiative of organising such a Summit and media colloquium to achieve a vision through promoting eco and green businesses, making people aware of global environmental issues, eradication of poverty, ensuring competitiveness of the economy, improving social development, ensuring good governance, and a clean and healthy environment is laudable�, said Prasad Dharmasena, a journalist from Sri Lanka.
