RNI

Introduction & Activities

The Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India, more popularly known as RNI came into being on 1st July, 1956, on the recommendation of the First Press Commission in 1953 and by amending the Press and Registration of Books Act 1867.

The Press and Registration of Books Act contains the duties and functions of the RNI. On account of some more responsibilities entrusted upon RNI during all these years, the office is performing both statutory as well as some non-statutory functions.

Under Statutory Functions, the following jobs are covered:

    sCompilation and maintenance of a Register of Newspapers containing particulars about all the newspapers published.

            Issue of Certificate of Registration to the newspapers published under valid declaration;

      Scrutiny and analysis of annual statements sent by the publishers of newspapers every year under Section 19-D of the Press and Registration of Books Act containing information on circulation, ownership etc;

          Informing the District Magistrates about availability of titles, to intending publishers for filing declaration;

          Ensuring that newspapers are published in accordance with the provisions of the Press and Registration of Books Act 1867 and the Rules made there under.

          Verification under Section 19-F of the PRB Act, of circulation claims furnished by the publishers in their Annual Statements; and

          Preparation and submission to the Government on or before 31st December each year, a report containing all available information and statistics about the press in India with particular reference to the emerging trends in circulation and in the direction of common ownership units etc.

The following items fall under the non-statutory functions:

         Formulation of Newsprint Allocation Policy - Guidelines and issue of Eligibility Certificate to the newspapers to enable them to import newsprint and to procure indigenous newsprint.

          Assessing and certifying the essential need and requirement of newspaper establishments to import printing and composing machinery and allied materials.

PIBThe 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, backgrounders, 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

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, backgrounders 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.

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 ‘Aam Aadmi’ 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 Govt. 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, FEATURE AND PHOTO SERVICES

Bureau’s 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 SERVICES 

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.

NIFA

India News and Feature Alliance (INFA) is India’s leading news and feature agency. An independent syndicate, it was founded on 14 November 1959 by Durga Das following his retirement as the Editor-in-Chief of the Hindustan Times.  

For over half a century, INFA has been crusading to strengthen India’s young democracy at the grassroots through a better-informed public opinion. It has endeavoured to achieve this by providing a daily service of articles on topical issues by leading experts giving background, inside information and in-depth analysis.

INFA service comprises daily columns, exclusive off-beat news items, backgrounders and special features.  Also provided are news items of different interest, both domestic and foreign, parliamentary service, INFA Digest as well as Dossiers on request. It also has a Publication Division, wherein important books are brought out annually.  

INFA is functioning from New Delhi. It is owned by Durga Das Private Ltd. 

INFA has the distinction of covering Indian Parliament for nearly five decades. The agency has also had an unrivalled insight into Parliament's functioning with its Editor having been a member of the Lok Sabha for two terms. Thus, one of INFA’s expertise lies in culling out the wheat from the chaff of parliamentary discourse: which includes Question Hour, Debates, Committee Reports, Legislative business and special policy matters concerning national and international affairs.

Indian Parliament meets three times a year and is a mind-field of important information for the common man, public and financial institutions and diplomatic missions. INFA Spotlight thus reports and analyses issues---political, financial, strategic, legislative and social for ready reference. It helps its clients understand the people's representatives better through pointed interviews. The Spotlight is an instant touch base facility which provides important policy matters both departmentally and ministry-wise on your fingertips. 

INFA's Parliament Spotlight is not restricted merely to proceedings of Parliament but also gives the reader the inside story of what actually transpires behind the scenes viz passing of laws and policy decisions.  

PHOTO DIVISION

INTRODUCTION

Photo Division, an independent media unit meant for visual support for the varied activities of the Government of India, is a subordinate office of the Ministry of Information and

Broadcasting and the biggest production unit of its kind in the country in the field of photography.

Photo Division was established on 6 th October 1959 as an integrated Photo Unit which was renamed as Photo Division in the early sixties. Government of India took a decision to establish this organization in the end of fifties, integrating the photo studio of the Publication Division and the Photo Unit of the Press Information Bureau & D.A.V.P. in view of the importance of the medium for right projection of the development of the country and also keeping in view of eliminating the duplication of the activities.

The Division is responsible for visual documentation and the preparing photographs both in Black & White and Colour initially for both of internal and external publicity on behalf of the Government of India.

FUNCTION/PROGRAMME

The major function of the Photo Division is to document photographically, the growth, Development and the political, economical and social changes in the country and to provide visuals (still) to the media units of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and other Central and State Government Agencies, Ministries/Departments including President Secretariat, Vice-President Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office, Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Secretariats and Indian Missions abroad through XP Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.

External Publicity Division of the Ministry of External Affairs and the P.I.B get the major chunks of the services provided by the Photo Division. While PIB uses the picture taken by the Division for the day-to day feeding to the Press through Internet, DAVP depends

On the complete visual support from the archives of the Division, which is developed during the last four decades for the preparation/production of various kind of Exhibition/advertising materials to be circulated amongst the large population of the country. On the other hand External Publicity Division of the Ministry of External Affairs takes a major chunks of its production for the external publicity of the Government of India. This includes extensive documentation of the visit of all the Heads of States/Government of Foreign countries and presentation of the albums of the documentation of those visits on the departure of VVIP’s.

The Division also supplies photographs on payment both in Black & White and Colour to the non-publicity organizations and general public through its Pricing Scheme.

PHOTO DIVISION’S ORGANISATIONAL SET UP

Photo Division is housed in Soochna Bhawan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, new Delhi – 110003. Besides, Main Office, the Division has also a Photo Unit/Cell functioning at Curzon Road, New Delhi, for providing direct photographic assistance/support to DAVP for their exhibition purpose and also to produce the murals for the use by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Dept. of Post & Telegraph, Ministry of Communication.

The Division is headed by a Director, with one Deputy Director, Senior Photographic Officer, seven Photographic Officers, Administrative Officer, Accounts Officer and technical and non-ministerial staff. For use of Rajbhasa as Official Language, the Division has a Hindi

Section with a Hindi Translator (Junior) and Hindi Typist (LDC) working directly under the Director for implementation of Hindi. The present total sanctioned staff of the Division is 110 including its regional Offices and its Unit.

Technical Officers including the Director, Deputy Director, Senior Photographic Officer and the Photographic Officers of this Division have to accompany the VVIPs (Prime Minister, Vice-President etc.) for providing photo coverage of their visit within the country and also the visit to abroad. Division takes up the documentation work particularly the Developmental activities, social and economic changes time to time for enriching its collection for the posterity.

One Officer of the Division accompany the visiting Heads of States and a special Album containing the entire documentation of the visit of the Dignitaries are presented just before their departure from the country, even it is outside the Headquarter.

LABORATORIES/STUDIO

During the present Plan Year the Division has taken up the modernisation jobs. It has substantially updated its laboratories and equipment for handling different kind of photographic production and assignments in Black & White and Colour both in conventional system as well as the state of art Digital technology at its Headquarters in Delhi. News Photo Network for transmission of images has been installed in the head quarter of the Photo Division, at Soochna Bhawan, New Delhi and the network could be linked from all of its regional offices for photo publicity of the Government activities.

A studio for taking portraits of the Hon’ble Ministers and other important personalities is also located in the Soochna Bhawan Office. In addition to the portrait it is being used for the coverage of the Classical Dances of the important Danseuse and also for taking the picture for the advertising and other publicity material required time to time. Studio (Laboratories) at Curzon Road (Kasturba Gandhi Marg) is mainly meant for the mural work for the exhibition purpose. Life size portraits and Blow-ups are made in this laboratory for the Ministry of External Affairs for the publicity of the visiting Heads of States and also for the preparation of the publicity material of the Post & Telegraph.

Photographs taken by the digital system can be transmitted from any part of the Globe. This is at present being used for the major important activities of the Government particularly for the publicity of the Vice-President, and the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister’s visit abroad.

Division established a Digital Photo Library at its Headquarter for digital storing of the conventional images acquired by the Division time to time. Processing of the transfer of the images from the conventional picture to the Digital Photo Library is also in progress. Images acquired by the Digital System of Photography can directly be taken from its network.

A Digital Printing System with LED II printer is also available with the Division in which bulk work for printing in large size prints are taken up by the Division. Photo Division is also feeding photographs on INTERNET FOR PIB on day-to-day basis.

XTH PLAN PROGRAMME

PILOT PROJECT AND DIGITALISATION OF THE LABORATORY

In the Second year of the present Plan Period, keeping in view of the change in the technology, the Division redesigned its Plan Project emphasising the digitalization of its laboratories and the images available in its archives. In order to do so, during the third year of the Plan period it took up the Archiving, Cataloguing and Digitalisation of the images available with the Photo Division along with converting its laboratories into a digital Lab in phased manner and upgrade the News Photo Network. In addition, Division with programme for its Modernisation, has already acquired the necessary digital camera and the lap tops with V Data Card for the quick transmission of the images directly from the place of coverage.

Till the end of 2005-2006, Division has been able to convert 212545 images to be placed in the Cumulus System as a part of its Cataloguing and Digitalisation of images.

NEWS PHOTO NETWORK

The images which has already been digitized has been put into specific software through which picture can be retrieved. Such digital library is located at Soochna Bhavan. Simultaneously with the launch of the new website, “photodivision.gov.in” the digitized images would be available through the net. News Photo Net work will also be used for receiving the pictures from different corner to be uploaded not only the newly designed Website but also PIB net which will be meant for use to the news person.

DAVP

The Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity (DAVP) is the nodal agency to undertake multi-media advertising and publicity for various Ministries and Departments of Government of India. Some of the Autonomous Bodies also route their advertisements through DAVP. As a service agency, it endeavours to communicate at grass roots level on behalf of various Central Government Ministries.

The origin of DAVP can be traced to the times of World War-II. Immediately after the out-break of Second World War, the erstwhile government of India appointed a Chief Press Advisor. Besides other things, advertising was also the responsibility of the Chief Press Advisor. A post of Advertising Consultant was created in June 1941 under the Chief Press Advisor. This is where DAVP has its roots. On March 1, 1942, the Advertising Consultant Office became the Advertising Branch of the Department of Information & Broadcasting. Following the expansion in its scope, functions and activities, this Advertising unit was declared an Attached Office of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting on October 1, 1955. The office also assumed the name of Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity(DAVP). DAVP was further declared as Head of a Department on April 4, 1959. By virtue of this declaration, financial and administrative powers were delegated to DAVP.

Our Role :

DAVP has been working as a catalyst of social change and economic growth over the years. It has been instrumental in creating awareness amongst masses on socio-economic themes,

seeking their participation in developmental activities and for eradication of poverty and social evils.

1. To perform the functions of a multi-media advertising agency for the Central Government. 2. To act as service agency for Central Government ministries/departments to meet their

publicity needs including production of media inputs as well as dissemination of messages/information.

3. To help Central Government departments in formulating communication strategies/media plans and help implement them at the grass-root level by providing multi-media support.

The channels of communication used are :

1. Advertisements - Release of press ads 2. Exhibitions - Putting up exhibitions 3. Outdoor Publicity - Display of hoardings, kiosks, bus panels, wall paintings, cinema slides,

banners etc. 4. Printed Publicity - Booklets, folders, posters, leaflets, calendars, diaries etc. 5. Audio & Visual Publicity - Spots/Quickies, jingles, sponsored programmes, short films etc. 6. Mailing of publicity material - Distribution of publicity material 7. Digital media publicity through Bulk SMS website and other emerging Media.

The main set-up of DAVP at the headquarters consists of :

1. Campaign Wing - for coordinating publicity campaigns 2. Advertising Wing - for release of press advertisement 3. Outdoor Publicity Wing - for display of outdoor publicity material 4. Printed Publicity Wing - for printing of publicity material 5. Exhibition Wing - for putting-up exhibitions 6. Mass Mailing Wing - for distribution of publicity material 7. Audio-Visual Cell - for production of audio/video programmes 8. Studio with DTP facility - for designing 9. Copy Wing - for making copy 10. Coordination Cell - for coordinating PQs,VIP ref., Parl.Committees 11. Electronic Data Processing Centre - for processing of bills. 12. Accounts Wing 13. Administration Wing

DAVP has a network of offices spread all over the country. DAVP has:-

1. Two Regional Offices at Bangalore and Guwahati to coordinate the Directorate's activities in the region.

2. Two Regional Distribution Centres at Calcutta and Chennai look after distribution of publicity material in eastern and southern regions, respectively.

3. 35 Field Exhibition Units which include seven mobile exhibition vans, seven family welfare units and 21 general field exhibition units.

4. Regional Exhibition Workshop at Chennai and 5. Exhibition Kit Production Centre at Guwahati assist the Exhibition Division at

headquarters in designing and fabricating exhibits.

Some of the important subjects publicised by DAVP include:-

1. Health & Family Welfare 2. Drug Abuse & Prohibition 3. Women & Child Development 4. Upliftment of Girl Child 5. Education 6. Adult Education 7. Non-Conventional Energy Sources 8. Mahila Samridhi Yojana 9. National Integration & Communal Harmony 10. Creating public opinion against dowry, female infanticide,child labour, beggery etc. 11. Blood Donation 12. AIDS Awareness 13. Consumer Protection 14. Safe Drinking Water 15. Welfare of the Handicapped 16. Water-Borne Diseases 17. Handicrafts 18. Social Welfare Programmes 19. Agriculture 20. Food & Nutrition 21. National Social Assistance Programmes 22. TRYSEM 23. IRDP 24. DWCRA 25. Employment Assurance Scheme 26. Jawahar Rozgar Yojana 27. Panchayati Raj and 28. Commemoration of 50 Years of India's Independence

DIP Delhi

The Directorate of Information & Publicity (DIP), located at Block IX. Old Secretariat, Delhi-110054, INDIA, is entrusted with the job of informing and publicizing the programmes, policies and activities of the Government of NCT of Delhi for citizens' welfare, particularly for weaker section of society. Its objective are:

1. to provide information to the public about its policies, programs and services that is accurate, complete, objective, timely, relevant and understandable;

2. to take into account the concerns and views of the public in establishing priorities, developing policies and implementing programs; and

3. to ensure that the government is visible, accessible and answerable to the public that it serves.

The Department has been performing its tasks through 8 units by engaging mass media such as print, TV, radio and internet among others. For all its brand (campaign) advertising and functional (non-campaign) advertising, the DIP engages the services of empanelled advertising agencies of Delhi Government and for services which are not qualitatively covered by the empanelled advertising agencies, it resorts to the media, production house and individual creative enterprises in the market by following codal formalities.

The Department is headed by a Director, who functions under the overall supervision of the Principal Secretary, Information and Public Relations, Government NCT of Delhi. The Director is assisted by the Deputy Directors, Information Officers, Assistant Information Officers, Field Publicity Officer and Publicity Assistants in carrying out the work entrusted to the Directorate. The officers of the Directorate look after the publicity work of the different departments of the Government of Delhi and for this purpose the Information officers and Assistant Information Officers are attached with different dignitaries like Lieutenant Governor Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chief Minister and other Ministers for the publicity of the departments under them. On the Administrative side, the Director is assisted by an Administrative Officer, Office Superintendent and Account Officer along with other administrative staff under them.

The Directorate accomplishes the information dissemination and publicity functions through its 8 units namely, Press Unit, Hospitality Unit, Publication Unit, Research and Reference Unit, Advertisement Unit, Field Publicity Unit, Film & Video Publicity Unit and Photo Unit.