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Broadcast parliament activities

Delwar Hossain Arif
IT is imperative to make all activities of the Bangladesh Parliament transparent to ensure an effective and accountable parliamentary democracy system, and broadcasting of those activities would be helpful in informing peo-• pie about the working of the parliament.
After electing the members of parliament (MPs) the voters have no idea what is being done by their representatives, so broadcasting activities relating to the Parliament will help people to know about the performance of their elected representatives.
There are special television and radio
channels in some countries to broadcast the activities of the parliaments. For example, in the United States, C-SPAN (Cable- Satellite Public Affairs Network) airs activities of the House of Representatives (Congress) and the Senate, particularly live sessions. C-SPAN also covers proceedings of parliamentary committees and programs related to public affairs.
There are several television and radio channels, and a website, of C-SPAN. The channel was launched as a non-profit media organisation by some cable companies. It also broadcasts programs related to meetings and press conferences of government and non-
government organisations.
Moreover C-SPAN covers news and events about the parliaments and governments of the U.K and Canada. The significant feature of C-SPAN is that it
also broadcasts not only live sessions but also meetings and hearings of parliamentary committees.
In a parliamentary democracy, there are parliamentary committees on differ-
ent subjects. Ministers, secretaries and civil servants are accountable to the parliament, and parliamentary committees are responsible for checking their activities.
Though Bangladesh Television (BTV) broadcasts some sessions of the parliament, it is not a regular practice. Sometimes BTV interrupts this live broadcasting for commercial and other programs. BTV and private television channels never broadcast the proceedings of meetings of parliamentary committees, they only cover news about those meetings. I think the time has come to broadcast all activities of the parliamentary committees. Doing so would make the parliamentary committees stronger and the concerned ministries more accountable to them.
To make our democracy and parliamentary system effective, the parliament must be made the epicenter of all activities of the administration and every aspect of state affairs. This will not be possible by keeping parliament activities out of sight of the people. If the government takes initiatives to broad-
cast live sessions and all activities of the parliamentary committees then it will act as a catalyst for making the parliamenteffective.
Is it possible to telecast live all the sessions and the activities of the parliamentary committees? The government can start a second channel of BTV for this purpose. If several meetings of parliamentary committees are held at a time then it can make records of those. 1 would like to urge to the government to consider this issue sincerely as this initiative would fulfill the dream of the people for a "change."
The UNDP has been financing a project for strengthening our parliamentary system. The government can request them to provide funds for a second channel of BTV that will be mainly focused oh activities and proceedings of the Parliament and the affairs of government, autonomous and, if possible, non-government organisations of Bangladesh.
Delwar Hossain Arif is an assistant professor and former chairman of Department of Communication and Journalism of University of Chittagong and now pursuing higher study in Media Theory & Research in Southern Illinois University Carbondale, the USA