Reuters photo
By
Ratnesh Dwivedi
Press Information Bureau, Government of India
Background
The government of India has various Ministries and they need to communicate with the media about their various plans, actions and policies, etc. To make these communications through one central level, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has one department known as the Press Information Bureau of India. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) is the nodal agency of the Government of India to disseminate information to the print and electronic media on government policies, programmes, initiatives and achievements. It functions as an interface between the Government and the media and also serves to provide feedback to the Government on people’s reaction as reflected in the media.
PIB disseminates information through different modes of communication viz press releases, press notes, feature articles, backgrounds, photographs, database available on Bureau’s website. Information disseminated is released in English, Hindi and Urdu and subsequently translated in other Indian languages to reach out to about 8,400 newspapers and media organizations in different parts of country.
In addition PIB organizes Press Conferences, Press Briefing, Interviews of the Minister’s /Secretary’s and other senior officers for sensitizing media persons on important policy initiatives of the Government. The Bureau also conducts Press Tours to successful project sites to enable media to have first-hand account of developmental activities going on in the country.
Organization
PIB has its Headquarters in New Delhi. It is headed by the Principal Director General (Media & Communication) who is assisted by a Director General and eight Additional Director Generals at Headquarters. Besides, the Bureau has Departmental Publicity Officers varying in ranks from Directors to Assistant Directors and Media & Communication Officers who are attached with different Ministries in order of the Officer’s rank and Ministry’s size, importance and sensitivity.
PIB also runs a Control Room (News Room) at Headquarters to ensure dissemination of information after normal working hours on weekdays from 6.00 pm to 9.00 pm and from 3.00 pm to 9.00 pm on weekends and holidays.
PIB has eight Regional Offices headed by Additional Director Generals and 34 Branch Offices and Information Centers to cater to information needs of regional press and other media. In addition to release of publicity material issued from the Headquarters in local language, these Regional and Branch Offices of PIB issue original press releases, press notes, backgrounds, etc, whenever an important event is organized by any of the Central Ministries or Public Sector Undertakings in a particular region. These Offices also take up the decisions of the Central Government which may be of special importance to a particular region for focused publicity through information dissemination on sustained basis.
Mode of Operation
Activities of PIB can be broadly classified in three Categories viz.:
- Information, Education & Communication (PUBLICITY)
- Feedback
- Accreditation & Special Services
IEC (Publicity)
Departmental Publicity Officers (DPOs) have been attached to various Ministries and Departments for disseminating information to the media through press releases, press notes, backgrounders etc. and also by arranging press conferences, press tours, media briefings, etc. These Officers have been consistently providing the requisite service to their respective Ministries and have been also meeting the information needs of media in respect of those Ministries. DPOs also advise their respective Ministries on all matters pertaining to information needs of media and Ministries’ publicity requirements.
Beside the routine publicity work, the Bureau makes some special endeavours towards publicity like Editors Conference on Social and Infrastructure Issues, Economic Editors’ Conference (EEC) PICs and Press Tours.
Public Information Campaigns (PICs)
Public Information Campaigns (PICs) are organized as information camps in collaboration with DAVP, DFP, S&DD, etc, to provide information to common people on various schemes of the Central Govt. The strategy of a PIC is to combine information dissemination with the delivery of services at the doorsteps for the beneficiaries particularly in rural areas. It envisages direct contact with the AamAadmi and seeks to empower citizen particularly from rural areas with knowledge of various welfare schemes of Central Govt. under the flagship programmes.
Press Tours
Successful projects, under various schemes of the Central Government in remote and backward regions of the country are identified and national and local media are taken on tours to visit these projects to get first-hand account of the efforts of the individuals, organizations and Government agencies and report the same in media.
Feedback, Features and Photo Service
Bureau officers attached to various Ministry/Departments also provide feedback to their respective Ministries and Departments. As part of the Special Services, the Feedback Cell in PIB prepares Daily Digests and Special Digests based on news stories and editorials from National as well as Regional dailies and periodicals for the use by Ministries. The Feature Unit of the Bureau issues backgrounders, updates, info-nuggets, features and graphics, which were also sent to the Regional/Branch offices for translation and circulation to the local media
Accreditation and other Service
The PIB provides accreditation to media representatives including foreign media at the Headquarters. This facilitates them to access information from the Government sources. The number of media persons accredited is 1618 correspondents and 476 cameramen/photographers. Besides, 152 technicians and 84 editors and media critics have also been granted accreditation. The Bureau has adopted a fully online system of accreditation from the year 2009.
On China
Officers working with the PIB are under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. They don’t relay their own views to the media on any matter, and also on China. However they do prepare reports and give feedbacks to the various Ministers. These ministers, or their appointed spokespersons, are entitled to give views on all related issues. So to find the views on China, one has to research on the individual ministries and their stand on China-related matters.
Contact details at the PIB Headquarters
Director General, A. P. Frank Noronha [email protected]
PRS [for press facilitation related emails] [email protected]
The following are the email IDs of officers dealing with media and communications functions for various Ministries/organisations:
Agriculture [email protected]
Chemicals & Fertilizers [email protected]
Commerce [email protected]
Communications &IT [email protected]
Company Affairs [email protected]
Culture [email protected]
Environment [email protected]
External Affairs [email protected]
Finance [email protected]
Food Processing [email protected]
Health & Family Welfare [email protected]
Heavy Industries [email protected]
Home [email protected]
Housing Urban Poverty [email protected]
Labour [email protected]
Law & Justice [email protected]
Mines [email protected]
MNRE [email protected]
Non-Resident Indian [email protected]
North East [email protected]
Panchayati Raj [email protected]
Parliament Affairs [email protected]
Personnel [email protected]
Petroleum & Natural Gas [email protected]
Power [email protected]
Road Transport [email protected]
Rural Development [email protected]
Science & Technology [email protected]
Social Justice [email protected]
Steel [email protected]
Tourism [email protected]
Tribal Affairs [email protected]
Vice President’s Office [email protected]
Water Resources [email protected]
Ratnesh Dwivedi transferred his skills of the Media Industry into his passion for writing, teaching and commenting on Global Affairs. He has seen the changing face of global politics as a budding media professional who regularly comments on the changing equation between U.S., Middle East and South Asia. He has been writing on the U.S. led strike on Iraq and post war reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later he continued his association with President George W Bush as a Charter Member of the George W Bush Presidential Center, Texas. The center is home to documentation of President Bush’s double tenure and consists of a library and museum.
Apart from his association with the Bush Center, Ratnesh Dwivedi is associated with several other organizations. He is Chapter Member with the Internet Society, a global non-profit organization which works for popularity of the internet. Ratnesh is also associated with
the European Communication Research and Education Association, a premier media research organization in Europe. He is also an Individual Member with the Institute of English Studies, University of London and has a non-member status with the American Astronomical Society.
He has authored five books. ‘The Story of an Intern’ is a reportage book of the struggle of an intern in the big bad media world, while ‘The Cosmic Mask’ is a compilation of nine space fiction stories which he self published with an Amazon company. Third and fourth are awarded academic books. His fifth book on US Intelligence and Cost of War was released in 2015.
Ratnesh Dwivedi bears the honor of attending several high rated workshops of NASA and continuously follows NASA updates. Ratnesh loves to be categorized as a prolific writer, commentator and academician.
Ratnesh Dwivedi attained his Masters Degree from the University of Lucknow in Journalism and Mass Communication in 1999 and is currently pursuing a doctorate on “International Terrorism and Television Channels: Operation and Regulation of Television Channels During Coverage of 9/11 and 26/11” from Amity University, India under the supervision of Dr Sarah T Partlow, Director and Professor at Idaho State University, U.S.
He has been associated with Amity University, where he led a project to set up Community Radio Station and TV Studio apart from his teaching assignment. He is widely published academician in the field of Media and Communication with nearly 30 publications and presentations in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Britain, USA and India.
He is serving as Director-CRS at Teerthankar Mahaveer University in India. He is Consultant with a NJ, a U.S. based Energy Firm, Advisors Energy Group and serves as Country Manager-India with London, UK based Cyber Security Firm-Orion-SAS. He reports for a China based think tank and contributes for global online magazine Tuck. He is Head of India with an Italian based CounterTerrorism entity which works with partner agencies around the globe. He lives in New Delhi with his wife and son.
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