PART D: EDITING (ENGLISH) SECTION

 

 

17.15      Responsibilities- The main responsibilities of the Section are:

 

i)                     Editing of floor version of Debates to prepare the Official Report;

ii)                   Preparation of Appendix of Annexures (i.e. long statements which are some times made in reply to Questions and which cannot be conveniently printed in the Debate); and

iii)                  Preparation of Index of the debates.

 

17.16      Floor Version of Debate- This Section has been assigned with the job of editing of floor version of Rajya Sabha debates or 'Official Reports' of the Rajya Sabha which are the full reports of the day to day proceedings of the Rajya Sabha. Debates are published under Rule 260 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha). Floor version of the Debate which includes speeches etc delivered by members in English as Hindi are published in the language in which these are delivered on the floor of the House and in the case of speeches delivered in other languages, the English translation thereof is published. In addition to this, Appendix of Annexures and Index of debates are also prepared in this Section. All these three items are got published, as these are very important documents for record and reference purposes.

 

17.16.1  Copies of the photocopied Debates are received from the Distribution Section in two parts, viz. Part-I and Part-II. Part-I consists of Starred and Unstarred Questions and Short Notice Questions and their answers while Part-II consists of proceedings other than Questions and Answers. After receiving the uncorrected copies of debates, the same are entered into the Debate Register and thereafter marked to the Assistant Editors for editing. Generally Part-I or Part-II is given to one Assistant Editor for editing. The details of the procedure to be followed for editing the uncorrected Debate are given in Chapter X, from para 10.45 onwards.

 

After completion of editing of debate by the Assistant Editor, the text is submitted to Editor-in-charge of the Section. He goes through it and makes the necessary corrections, if any, in it and submits to the Senior Editor. After the perusal/checking by Senior Editor the edited debate is sent to the Chief Editor for final checking. Thereafter the edited debate is sent to Editing (Hindi) Section for preparing the second copy of the manuscript, which is used for the preparation of Hindi version of the Debate. Using the electronic text of the uncorrected Debates obtained from the LAN or the Internet Branch, CRC copies of Part-II of Debates is prepared thereafter, incorporating the additional changes in the manuscript copy. The CRC is checked, page numbered and sent to Printing Section alongwith Part-I of the Debate for final printing.

 

17.16.2  The editing of Parliamentary Debates involves numerous items of work to ensure correct and accurate reporting. During this process editorial notes and footnotes are given at appropriate places, portfolios of Ministers and the 'Constituencies' of the members are verified and the corrections suggested by Ministers and Members in their speeches in order to remove any grammatical and factual errors are incorporated. It is also ensured that each item of the debate for a session and a date have two essential levels i.e., Type of Debate (e.g. Questions; Special Mentions, Bills for introduction) and Title of Debate (which contains the actual subject matter under consideration). This is important since Folio software requires these levels before the debate can be processed for being put onto the Internet.

 

17.17      Preparation of List of Debate contents- A List of Contents pertaining to a Debate is prepared including therein all the headings of the items discussed or referred to in the house. This list of Contents is added before the start of the text of the Debate. In case page numbering is final, this is also given in the contents page.

           

 

17.18      Monitoring of the Process of Editing and Printing: For monitoring with the Printing Section, the Editing Section also maintains the Register of Official Reports as per the following format:

 

Session No.__________

 

Date of Sitting

Date & Time of Receipt of uncorrected copy

Total no. of pages in Part-I/Part-II

Date of editing of official report

Date of correction of electronic text

Date of sending CRC to Printing Section

Date of Receipt back of copy of Printed Report

Date of preparation of Index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17.19      Putting of the Debates onto Internet- After the CRC version of the Debate is finalized, an electronic copy is sent to the Computer Centre (NIC64G) giving the date and part of the Debate, in order to process it under Folio Software to put onto the Internet.

 

17.20      Compilation of Appendix- Long or complex statements which cannot be conveniently included in the main Report are printed in an Appendix at the end of each session, as described in para 10.57 of Chapter X. While editing the Debate, documents which are selected for placement in the Appendix are to be removed and kept in a separate folder (maintained session wise) and corresponding entry made in the main Debate as described in Para 10.57.

 

17.21      Sessionwise Index to Debates- After the Debates is printed, as described in para 10.60, index to the Debates are prepared sessionwise to facilitate quick and easy reference to entries of Debates. Index is prepared subject-wise and name-wise. Subject-wise index is further divided into two parts. One part contains questions and the other part contains Debates and other proceedings. The purpose of the index is to easily find out the entries under particular subject or particular Member or Minister i.e. particular name.

 

            For preparation of Index of debates, the Editor-in-charge distributes the printed debates (after they are received back from the Press) among the Assistant Editors for marking the subject-heading and then Junior Clerks/Senior Clerks/Assistants give the serial numbers of Members therein and thereafter they feed it into the Computer. The draft print out is read by the Assistant Editors and thereafter corrections are carried out by the Clerks/Assistants. The final printout is compared and checked by the Assistant Editors and reviewed by the Editor and Senior Editor before being sent to Printing Section for printing.

 

17.21.1  Printing of CRC of Indices: In case the Press prepares the proofs, the Indices are prepared after printed copies of the Debates are received, since page numbers will only then be available. In case however the Section itself prepares Camera Ready Copies (CRC), the Index is prepared simultaneously or soon of the editing after debate, using the given page numbers. The Index data is entered into the computer using a computer program and CRC copy of the Index, printed by the computer is sent to the Printing Section for printing of the session index.

 

17.22      Miscellaneous Jobs- In addition to the above mentioned three items of work, following items of work are also undertaken by this Section as and when required by other Sections of the Service:

 

i)                     Vetting & translation of Hindi Notices of questions;

ii)                   Vetting of Committee Reports;

iii)                  Vetting and Translation of Listed Questions;

iv)                 Vetting of Hindi Debates;

v)                   Preparation of Synopsis; and

vi)                 Preparation of Camera Ready Copies of Debates (Part-II only)

 

17.23      Maintenance Duties- For following items, maintenance duty is performed by Attendants.

 

i)                     For keeping the Reporter's copy and spare copy of manuscripts of the edited Debates till the printed copy of the same is received in the Section;

ii)                   For keeping the manuscripts of List of Appendix;

iii)                  For keeping the items of Stationery for use in the Section;

iv)                 For stitching and binding of manuscripts of debates/Appendices/Indices etc.;

v)                   For keeping the bound copies of Printed Debates/Appendices/Indices etc. for record and reference purposes.