Srinagar: A four-day capacity building workshop for Urdu journalists commenced on Monday at the Hazratbal campus of University of Kashmir.
Vice- Chancellor Professor Neelofar Khan presided over the inaugural function of the workshop. She was accompanied by the Director NCPUL Professor Aquil Ahmad, Dean School of Arts, Languages and Literatures Professor Adil Amin Kak and senior faculty member of MERC Professor Aaliya Ahmad.
The workshop, organised by the National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL) in collaboration with Dean School of Arts, Languages and Literatures and Media Education Research Centre (MERC) will focus on enhancing the skills of budding journalists and those already working in the field.
In her presidential address Professor Neelofer Khan stressed on the significance of Urdu language and its deep roots in our culture.
She said that our youth are getting disconnected from our culture and our vernacular languages have power to connect them back to our roots.
She said that digital culture has brought many important changes in our lives but at the same time there is a risk of getting distracted and those distractions can be avoided if we inculcate and encourage the reading culture among our youth.
Professor Neelofer Khan praised the teachers for putting in efforts to help students improve their concentration levels. She said that Urdu has an amazing reach and young Urdu journalists, if trained well, can make amazing contribution to the development of their society and to whole humanity as well.
She also emphasised on the importance of such workshops and promised the organisers al help for such endeavours in future.
In his special remarks Director NCPUL Professor Aquil Ahmad said that NCPUL has a huge budget for the promotion of Urdu journalism and that budget is graciously allocated by the Government so that healthy journalism could be encouraged. He further said that Urdu journalists need to understand that media can play a significant role in the nation building provided they focus on positive developments and disseminate the information regarding journalism among the people.
He said that bad practices like yellow journalism need to be checked and young journalists need to be encouraged to go in a proper direction so that their skills or put the best use.
Dean School of Arts, Languages and Literatures Prof Adil Amin Kak that Urdu has long and shinning past and it has a great potential as it is the language of masses here. He stressed on the importance of the workshop and said that it will help the participants to improve upon their skills as young journalists.
In her remarks the Director Institute of Kashmir Studies (IKS ) and senior faculty member of MERC Professor Aliya Ahmad spoke about the upliftment of Urdu language. She also said that journalists need to be good communicators in order to do justice with their job.
“Journalists can do well only if they are good communicators and best communication happens in one’s own language,” she said. She hoped that this workshop will help young journalists in upgrading their skills and also improve their story telling skills. She also stressed on the need of ethical reporting.
The inaugural session was followed by technical sessions on future of Urdu journalism and feature writing. Media trainer and former faculty member of the MERC Nasir Mirza and journalist Basharat Masood were the resource persons. During the sessions the participants were engaged in practical exercises.
