New Delhi, March 8: As India gears up for assembly elections in four states and one Union Territory, Google on Monday announced to train journalists covering the polls with a new online training series. The Google News Initiative (GNI), in partnership with digital media and information initiative DataLEADS, has opened registration for "PollCheck: Covering India's Election" online training series in local languages, with a special boot camp for community radio stations. Assembly Elections 2021: Budget Session of Parliament May Conclude Before First Phase of Polls on March 27, Say Sources.

The GNI aims to offer training on photo and video verification, YouTube for election coverage, data visualisation for elections and how journalists can keep their online accounts and sources safe. "This PollCheck training series is open to journalists, journalism students, media educators, bloggers and community radio station professionals. Your participation will be confirmed and a Zoom link will be shared via email," the GNI team said in a statement. Assembly Elections 2021: Election Commission Tells Centre to Remove PM Narendra Modi's Photo From COVID-19 Vaccination Certificates in Poll-Bound States, Say Reports.

The GNI India training network was launched in July 2018, onboarding 240 trainers via seven trainings of trainers in different Indian languages. Since the inception, the network has trained more than 25,000 journalists, media educators, journalism students and fact-checkers across the country. India is set to hold assembly elections in the states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and UT Puducherry in March, April and May.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 08, 2021 11:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).