Congress launches NUR campaign to gather details of unemployed youth in UP

With the issue of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Population Register (NPR) dominating media headlines, the Congress has launched a campaign titled National Unemployment Register (NUR). Under this campaign, the grand old party cadres will collect details of unemployed youth in each district of Uttar Pradesh. Later, this data will be collated state- and nation-wise and will be used to attack the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Uttar Pradesh unit of youth Congress has already launched a campaign to this effect. The party has released a mobile number to help unemployed youth to give a missed call and register under the NUR.

Recipe for confusion

The lack of coordination between the media team of a first-time cabinet minister and the Press Information Bureau (PIB) team attached to his ministry has turned out to be a recipe for confusion and delays for scribes covering the beat. This is a clear departure from the trend set by his predecessor, whose personal media team called the shots. This team became a key source of information on the ministry’s future moves and actions. The new media team of the incumbent is learnt to be “figuring its way” even months after taking over and doesn’t enjoy the same level of confidence as the PIB team. At the receiving end of all this are news-hungry journalists who have to encounter a more guarded media relations team. Will this ministry also follow the finance ministry, which restricted access to journalists since July last year?

Art Aadmi Party
 

No matter how advanced and accessible camera phones have become in recent years, good-quality photography and videography, by and large, remain an art for a few. This maxim has been captured (pun intended) well in the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) campaign for the February 8 Assembly polls in Delhi. To document its key moments in megapixels, it has hired a professional team. Members of this team are seen at all the important events — from press conferences to nomination filings — armed with state-of-the-art equipment and skills to match. The result: Better pictures and videos, which are uploaded after being carefully processed and edited by the members of this team. The party is surely hoping this would help it deliver its message more succinctly.