A One Day Seminar on 'Role of Youth in Political Decision Making' was held on Sunday, September 18 at the International Centre, Goa (Dona Paula).
The seminar was organised by 'The International Centre Goa (ICG)' in association with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – India and Media Information and Communication Centre of India. Sessions were held on the following topics: Session 1- 'Engaging Youth in Political Process: Do Political Parties Exploit Youth for their own Interests?', Session 2- 'What Ails our Democracy? Youth Perception and Presumption', Session 3- 'Youth Converting Electoral Democracy into Participatory Democracy through RTI - The most Potent Weapon' , and Session 4- 'Portrayal of Youth in Media: How Real? How Distorted?' The sessions were chaired by Valmiki Naik, Malisa Simoes, Akhil Parrikar and Suraj Shenai, core committee members of 'India Against Corruption(Goa Unit)'. ---------------------- Report of the seminar as below: Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article2466836.ece Media urged not to stereotype the youth ‘Portrayal of youth in a negative way is harmful' Pic: India Against Corruption youth convenor Valmiki Naik speaking on ‘Role of youth in Political Decision Making' in Dona Paula on Sunday. Instead of targeting youth for revenue-centric content on one hand, which perpetuates stereotypes such as youth was “good for nothing”, media should make concerted efforts to give more youth-centric coverage with emphasis on concerns of youth such as unemployment and challenges. This was the gist of debate on a lively session on “Portrayal of Youth in Media: How Real? How distorted?” which was part of a day-long seminar on “Role of youth in political decision making” held at The International Centre Goa (ICG) on Sunday in association with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – India and Media Information and Communication Centre of India. Seminar was inaugurated in the morning by GIC Director Nandini Sahai in the presence of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, India senior advisor Rajeshwar Dyal. Youth from different colleges participated in the seminar in big number. Giovanni D'Cunha said youth was being in negative way in the media or just glamourised, and both ways it led to public forming an unbalanced perception about youth. This only enhances stereotypes, he said. Lionnel Fernandes echoed the sentiments and said the media had been giving a negative spin to media issues causing “disturbed perceptions” of youth today leading to wrong policies and laws affecting youth. In its habit of “selling news of conflict” which “sells”, the media targets the youth, who were biggest consumers, without realising the damage it did to youth because of portrayal of a negative image, he said. Suraj Shenai, who chaired the session, emphasised on high level of participation of youth in the recent Anna Hazare's movement against corruption and hailed media for projecting that. He said youth had been focussed but the problem with media at times was that it talked of success without talking about the process. In the session on “Youth Converting Electoral Democracy into Participatory Democracy through Right to Information (RTI) – a potent weapon,” Santoshi Chari said and added that people needed to see RTI as a pathway to change. Social activist and advocate Albertina Almeida stressed on the need to work collectively to use the RTI law.She said society should make efforts to ensure that marginalised sections of society come forward and make use of the RTI to fight injustice. Mere getting information was not the purpose of the RTI but using the information to ensure that the perpetrators of corruption were brought to book, she said. On “What Ails our Democracy? Youth Perception and Presumptions,” Bakita Naik said social and economic inequalities were not seriously addressed by democracy even after 60 years. Priyanka Naik attributed growing corruption in the system for lack of accountability of the democratic system to the people which in turn was the fallout of low social awareness among the people. Shainice Pinto said although public was the main pillar of democracy, growing pendency of cases in courts and corruption in judiciary frustrated people. She suggested electoral reforms such as right to recall as some of the solutions to the ills. Tushidas Pai said more people and youth in particular should take interest in the affairs of the democratic functioning. Earlier in the morning, guiding the youth in the session on “Engaging youth in political process: do political parties exploit youth for their own interests?”, Rahul Tripathi, Assistant professor, Department of Political Science, Goa University, said the youth should strive to join the system and work for change.
