New Delhi, November 11
While the SAARC members agreed to a liberalised visa regime for media personnel, India asked the member nations to understand the contours of global village, otherwise SAARC would miss the boat.
“If SAARC cannot organise itself, it will simply miss the boat,” the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said in an obvious reference to Pakistan today at the SAARC Information Ministers meet in the Capital.
Briefing newspersons about the day-long meeting, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, said the ministers agreed to liberalised visa regime for media personnel to enable free movement across the SAARC region.
The SAARC ministers also agreed to set up an information centre in Nepal and other member countries would provide the technological inputs and train media persons in India.
The issue of adopting model transnational guidelines on broadcasting suggested by India was however put on the back-burner after all members except Bhutan failed to provide their comments and Pakistan and Bangladesh asked for more time to study the proposals, said Mr Prasad.
He said the guidelines would be again circulated among all member nations and they had agreed to come up with their suggestions within 45 days.
Asked about the ban on Indian television channels in Pakistan, he said the issue did not figure in today’s talks since this was a bilateral issue.
He said India pointed out that there should be free flow of creativity across member nations and suggested regular holding of SAARC film festival.
Mr Prasad said New Delhi would host the next meeting of journalists, editors and other media personnel of member nations next year.
