lawmakers, media can supplement each other's roles: Jitendra

Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh on Friday said lawmakers and the media can supplement each other's roles and together they can play a meaningful role in the development of the society. The Union Minister for Department of North Eastern Region (DoNER) was speaking at a program to celebrate the platinum jubilee of Meghalaya's oldest English daily, The Shillong Times.

"Lawmakers and media can supplement each other's roles, and together they can actually play a much more meaningful role in the development of society and the development of India as a whole," he said. Hinting at his old relationship with the newspaper, Singh said he had heard of The Shillong Times when it became a daily newspaper in 1987 from a weekly one.

At that time, the minister said, he used to write columns which were syndicated by an agency, and a few of those articles had been published in The Shillong Times. Later, at the sidelines of the program, Singh said denied allegations from some quarters that the autonomy of the North Eastern Council (NEC) has been diluted.

"The NEC will now have a much more meaningful role in conducting and evolving new concepts for the region," he said. Constituted in 1971 by an Act of Parliament, the NEC is the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the region which consists of eight states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura.

Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, who was also present at the newspaper's program, lauded the daily for adopting environment conservation as its theme for the platinum jubilee celebration. The celebration kicked off Thursday with a cleaning drive of Umkaliar river in the city.

"Conservation of the environment is a global concern today and it needs a holistic approach involving all the stakeholders," the chief minister said. He asserted that the Meghalaya government is serious about protecting the environment and pointed out that the state was the first to have a water policy in India.

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