NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has said the endeavour of the Government is to improve delivery systems, need to promote digital transformation and take forward the connectivity revolution in all sectors.

Speaking after the release of the Government of India Calendar 2017, he lauded the growth of the Indian print media and said it continued its growth story at a steady rate of 5.13% over the previous year. Earlier, Naidu launched the Government of India Digital Calendar 2017 App. He added that the calendar App could be downloaded from Google Play store free of cost.

A total of 5,423 new publications had been registered during the year 2015-16 with the total number of Registered Publications as on 31 March 2016 standing at 1, 10,851.

Giving the Circulation-wise details, Naidu said that Hindi publications continued to lead with 31,44,55,106 copies per publishing day followed by English with 6,54,13,443 copies and Urdu with 5,17,75,006 copies per publishing day.

He said the phenomenal growth of the print media sector had mandated changes in the print media policy/guidelines in the past years. The need to update policies keeping in mind the changing dynamics in the print media sector, has resulted in evolving a robust mechanism for RNI to maintain an updated list of Publications in the Country. This mechanism also facilitated weeding out illegal publications that may prove to be an irritant to law-enforcement agencies.

Referring to the New Print Advertisement Policy framework, the Minister said that it provided for circulation verification Procedure for empanelment of Newspapers and Journals with DAVP. The procedure involved certification by RNI if circulation exceeds 45,000 copies per publishing day.

He said the vision of the Government was to position the nation on a sustainable growth trajectory. The Government is committed to bring about transformational changes in the country with the mantra of ‘Reform, Perform & Transform’.

The vision has been depicted in the Government of India Calendar 2017 with the theme “Mera Desh Badal Raha Hai, Aage Badh Raha Hai”.

He also released the Press in India Report 2015-16 prepared by the Registrar of Newspapers of India. Minister of state for information & broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore was also present on the occasion.

Naidu announced that the Government would be launching a 100 days campaign across the country on the theme of Good Governance from 25 December which marks the birthday of the former prime minister A B Vajpayee and is celebrated as Good Governance Day. Ministers, Members of the Parliament would be travelling across the country to highlight key initiatives of the Government that has been taken in the last two and a half years.

The Government Calendar meanwhile showcases various flagship schemes and initiatives of the Government identifying a different theme every month:

·        Jan:     Skilling India for Youth Led Development

·        Feb:    Empowering the Poor

·        Mar:   Sashakt Nari, Sashakt Bharat

·        April: Futuristic India through Infrastructure Building

·        May:  MSME: India’s Economic Backbone

·        June: Farmers: Bread Winners of our Nation

·        July:   Rural Electrification: Lightning Every Home     

·        Aug:    Armed Forces: Pride of the Nation

·        Sept:   Cashless Transactions

·        Oct:     Swachh Bharat: New Vigour to Sanitation

·        Nov:   Corruption Free Governance

·        Dec:    Sugamya Bharat: Accessible India

The highlights of the Press in India Report is given below: