After the NDA government’s celebration campaign on completing one year in office, the Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry is gearing up to promote International Yoga Day on June 21, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet projects, in a big way.
In a meeting held on Tuesday, the I&B Secretary, along with the Secretary, Ministry of Ayush met with officials of key industry bodies – News Broadcasters Association, Indian Broadcasting Foundation and Association of Radio Operators for India, along with digital cinema operators.
The private broadcasters promised to pitch in to promote International Yoga Day, “considering it’s a victory for India to have got UN endorsement for Modi’s proposal.”
On its part, the Ministry will be running ad spots on private news channels as well as general entertainment channels, besides print ads and radio ad spots across all mediums, in a 360 degree communication approach.
The members of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation on its own will be developing ads, to be aired over the course of the next 19 days. These spots will be run free of cost by members of these two associations, which include both news and non-news channels.
DD plans
Meanwhile, Doordarshan has started special programming, which includes interviews, documentaries and discussion programmes on the benefits of Yoga. Cartoon strips, illustrations and line drawings depicting salient features of the Yoga protocol may also be put together in the form of a booklet. The Ministry, which has been using social and digital media in a big way, has made elaborate plans to promote International Yoga Day. While it will host a dedicated blog page on the celebrations, it will also change the look and feel of all its social media accounts to reflect International Yoga Day.
Other initiatives include live streaming of Yogathone (Yoga Marathon on June 21 at Rajpath), branding of content around specific hashtags, crowd sourcing photo session among others.
The Ministry is using a similar 360 degree approach for completion of one year of the government. For instance, the DAVP has deployed 345 mobile exhibitions to cover 643 districts fitted with GPS to promote government policies and achievements.
The Song and Drama division has got the mandate to mount 759 programmes in two phases and has deputed cultural troupes to perform nukkad nataks , folk and traditional theatre forms, ballet, pictorial exhibitions on the development programmes of the government.