India Blocks Foreign Newsmen from Environ Course

The Indian Foreign Ministry has declined to allow foreign journalists to participate in an environmental journalism course focusing on coastal management scheduled to be held in the southern Tamil Nadu city of Tuticorin ongoing until Nov. 6.

The Institute for Further Education of Journalists (FOJO) of Sweden, in cooperation with Suganthi Devadason Marine Research Institute (SDMRI) of India is organising the programme to provide journalists some of the basic tools in covering environment issues with special emphasis on the coastal and marine environment.

Methods of reporting and planning of the work are also discussed and practiced in the course. Furthermore, the course focuses on how to get access to and analyse scientific information and how to make it interesting to common people.

Impacts of human activities on the coastal and marine environment are also being presented and discussed, and the opportunities and benefits provided by the coastal and marine environment are highlighted.

Fifteen journalists from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were selected for the course, of which four were from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka each. Visas for these journalists were also issued.

But at the last minute, the foreign ministry of India, on October 20 declined to grant the participants permission to attend the environmental course.

"We are extremely sorry to inform that because of the unfortunate decision from the Ministry, the course is now conducted only with Indian participants," SDMRI director JK Patterson Edward said in an e-mail communiqué with the Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan participants.

"We were in receipt of the letter from the Ministry on Oct. 20, 2009 and we tried our best to get things done, but now we felt that it was too late and not within our hands."

A Bangladeshi journalist, who was deprived of participation in the course due to a last minute decision of the Indian foreign ministry said, "FOJO or the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the financer of the programme, should rethink before further funding any project in India as it harass foreign journalists to get visa or let attend them in the programmes."

SIDA, in a separate statement, clarified they were not involved in the project at all.

(Source: http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/10/24/news0567.htm)