The state-owned news agency, RSS marking its 63rd Anniversary today

Kathmandu: The Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS), the official state-owned news agency, is marking its 63rd anniversary day today at its central office at Bhadrakali Plaza.

Minister for Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma is scheduled to inaugurate the formal programme.

RSS was founded on Falgun 7, 2018 B.S. by merging then two news agencies–‘ Nepal Sambad Samiti’ and ‘Sagarmatha Sambad Samiti’–operating in the private sector.

Since its inception, RSS has been collecting and disseminating official, reliable and fact-based news under the major theme of ‘Communications for Development’.

RSS has been operating as an autonomous organization following the introduction of the Rastriya Samachar Samiti Act, 2019 B.S.

RSS has currently established offices in all seven provinces according to the federal structure of the country. It has been continuously disseminating its news-based products through online service to its subscribers including radio, newspapers, television and online news portals. It has also started audio-visual service from July 17, 2022.

Recently, RSS started disseminating news in the Awadhi languages and is preparing to disseminate news in other national languages including Maithili and others.

The news agency has been providing news products in the Nepali and English languages while it also provides international news of various new agencies, as well as articles, audiovisuals and photographs.

It is also conferring honour and awards to the outstanding reporters, editors and employees today coinciding with the 63rd anniversary. As decided, its employees and district correspondents are to be conferred on the occasion of its 63rd anniversary today.

A meeting of the RSS Board of Directors on Saturday decided to award district correspondents- Rupani GM (Banke-Woman), Manoj Dahal (Morang) and Niranjan Kumar Shah (Dhanusha). The award carries a purse of Rs 20,000 each.

Similarly, Ram Bikash Chaudhary (Rupandehi) has been recognised for his best feature story on Lifecycle of Bat while senior editor Krishna Prasad Sapkota has been selected for the award from the new editing section.

Ashok Ghimire (news reporting), Suresh Acharya (photo and audio-visual), and Rajesh Kumar Shrestha (accounts/administration) have been selected for the awards, according to RSS General Manager Siddharaj Rai. The award carries a purse of Rs 20,000 each.

Similarly, Radio Nepal (among RSS subscribers), Ratopati online (in terms of giving credit to the RSS news) and the Prateek Daily are also to be honoured today.