Strengthening Journalism to advance Democracies
SLPI marks World Press Freedom Day 2021 with webinar on Information as a Public Good
COLOMBO – The Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) will mark World Press Freedom Day on Monday (3) in concurrence with UNESCO’s commemoration of 30 years of the Windhoek Declaration, on the theme ‘Information as a Public Good’.
The completion of 30 years of the landmark Windhoek Declaration for the development of free independent and pluralistic press also sheds light on SLPI’s own roadmap declaration for media freedom in Sri Lanka, the Colombo Declaration of Media Freedom and Social Responsibility of 1998.
This year’s theme revolves around affirming the importance of information, enhancing media information and literacy to defend and demand journalism as a vital part of information as a public good. In seeking to advance professionalism in journalism and promote media freedom under the theme; ‘Strengthening Journalism to Advance Democracies; Information as a Public Good’, the SLPI recognizes reliable information as key to forge collective aspirations of better democracies.
In echoing this message, the SLPI and the Pathfinder Foundation are jointly hosting a webinar on Right to Information to coincide with the World Press Freedom Day, reiterating the importance of access to information as a public good. The six-member panel comprises Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha -Chief Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission, New Delhi, India, Kishali Pinto Jayawardena – Commissioner, Right to Information Commission, Sri Lanka, Ashwini Natesan – Independent researcher and advocate, Shyamlal Yadav – Senior Editor, The Indian Express, Jayantha Fernando – Director, Sri Lanka CERT and General Counsel, ICTA, and M.Sridhar -former Commissioner, Central Information Commission of India. They will make presentations on; ‘Gains of the present, priorities for the future’, ‘Implementing RTI: Development priorities, exposing corruption, ’and‘RTI; Privacy and data protection’. Waruna Karunatilake will moderate the panel.
The webinar will be held on the Zoom platform on 3.30 p.m. on Monday. For more details check the SLPI website www.slpi.lk or on Facebook or Twitter.