Media completing ignoring issues of rural India, says Sainath

coastaldigest.com news network
August 21, 2017

Udupi, Aug 21: Veteran journalist P Sainath has expressed frustration over Indian media’s reluctance to cover rural issues.

The Magsaysay award winner was delivering a special lecture on the topic — “The story of rural India in digital age”— here on Sunday. The lecture was organised as part of the endowment lecture series “Talluru Nudimale – 2017” by the Tallur Family Trust.

Mr. Sainath said that the front page of average national dailies dedicated space of just 0.67% to stories of rural India. This was an average of five years. This meant that 69% of the population was marginalised in the media. This also meant that there was an ill-informed society.

Rural India is incredibly complex having 833 million people speaking over 718 different languages, he said and added that six of those languages were being spoken by 50 million people and three languages were spoken by over 80 million people, while one language was spoken by 500 million people. Inequalities in India had grown faster in the last 20 years than in any other country in the world. Some of the finest skills in the country were dying.

The Skills Development Project was taking the weavers of Kanjeevaram, one of the greatest traditions in Indian history, and was making them autorickshaw drivers. The Tamil weavers had given up. Now, it was Padmashalis from Telangana who are doing the work of weaving. A giant de-skilling was taking place in rural India.

Millions of children were entering schools, where they could not own textbooks. But the newspapers, magazines and television channels were silent on it. Even the education sector was getting commercialised and privatised. The high-rung IIMs were charging Rs. 22 lakh as fees. The low-rung IIMs were charging Rs. 10 lakh and above. Though there were only a few freedom fighters living now, the media had not bothered to take their opinion on the freedom movement during the 70th Independence Day. Instead, one of the newspapers had taken the views of CEOs of big companies and Bollywood celebrities on it, he said. Mr. Sainath released “Nunnanabetta”, a collection of articles written by Rajaram Tallur.

G.N. Mohan and Nagesh Hegde, journalists, M.S. Sriram, writer and economist, Narayana A., Professor, Azim Premji University, gave their responses to Mr. Sainath’s lecture.
 

Comments

Vinod Acharya
 - 
Monday, 21 Aug 2017

The solo warrier... well said sir. Real face of media..

AR Shetty
 - 
Monday, 21 Aug 2017

I'm a big fan of you sir. 

Hari
 - 
Monday, 21 Aug 2017

Sir, Including you only few people doing true journalism

Danish
 - 
Monday, 21 Aug 2017

Smooth running of media, needed capital. so media cant neglect corperators and MNCs. without them media wont get capital and advts..

Kumar
 - 
Monday, 21 Aug 2017

I remember sir, you told once in a workshop regarding media neglected farmer issues and went for fashion show coverage

Ganesh
 - 
Monday, 21 Aug 2017

Sir, Media and media people (except you) needed more publicity, so they will do unwanted controversy issues. 

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News Network
January 7,2020

Jan 7: A Delhi Court today issued death warrant against four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. The hanging will take place on January 22 at 7 am.

During the hearing, the prosecution said there was no application pending before any court or the President right now by any of the convicts and the review petition of all the convicts was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the court had reserved order on issuing of death warrants against four death row convicts.

Today's order comes days after mother of the victim in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case moved the Supreme Court on opposing the plea filed by one of the four death-row convicts seeking review of its 2017 judgement awarding him death penalty.

The apex court had on July 9 last year dismissed the review pleas filed by the other three convicts — Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Vinay Sharma (24) — in the case, saying no grounds have been made out by them for review of the 2017 verdict.

The 23-year-old girl was gangraped and murdered by six men on a moving bus on 16 December 2012. The main accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail during the trial. Another accused was a minor at the time of the commission of the crime and was sent to a reform facility and released after three years.

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News Network
May 5,2020

Bengaluru, May 5: Migrant workers blocked national highway near Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) in Bengaluru on Monday, demanding to be sent back to their home states.

Revenue Minister R Ashok and CM's Political Secretary Vishwanath visited the spot and sent all migrant workers to BIEC center.

The protest caused more traffic and Peenya Police Inspector also suffered minor injuries while sending the migrants. Most of the migrants hail from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

As per the information from, some migrant workers tried to throw stones at the police while they tried to evacuate them from the road to the BIEC center.

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News Network
March 13,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 13: India has registered the first confirmed case of death due to novel coronavirus. A 76-year-old man from Karnataka's Kalaburgi who passed away recently has been tested positive for Covid-19.

The doctors had suspected that the man had coronavirus, however, the test had not confirmed it.

In an official notification, a senior health official in Karnataka government Dr Suresh Shastri said that the lab test has confirmed that the deceased man had Covid-19.

"The 76-year-old man from Kalburgi who passed away and was a suspected COVID 19 patient has been confirmed for COVID 19. The necessary contact tracing, isolation and other measures as per protocol are being carried out. Telangana government has also been informed since he went to a private hospital there," Dr Suresh Shastri said.

The same information was also shared by Karnataka health minister B Sriramulu.

A senior Union health ministry official said in New Delhi that the death of the man had visited Saudi Arabia from January 29 to February 29. The official said the man had reached in Hyderabad on February 29 and went to Kalaburagi in Karnataka.

State Joint Director (Communicable Diseases) BG Prakash Kumar said all protocols were followed for disposal of the body.

"The body is disinfected completely and disposed of as per the Government of India guidelines," he added when asked to elaborate on the protocols.

He said the Telangana government has also been informed as the man had gone to a private hospital in Hyderabad earlier.

While announcing the death of the man on Tuesday, the state authorities had said the exact cause his death was being ascertained.

According to the Union health ministry official, "While he was asymptomatic on his return (from Saudi Arabia), he developed symptoms of fever and cough on 6th March. One private doctor visited him at his home and treated him there."

"On 9th March, the symptoms got aggravated and he was shifted to a private hospital in Kalaburagi. In this private hospital, he was provisionally diagnosed as 'mid-zone viral pneumonia' and 'suspected Covid-19'," the official said.

"The sample was collected on March 9... Without waiting for the test results, the attendees insisted and the patient was discharged against medical advice and the attendees took him to a private hospital in Hyderabad," the official said.

The patient was admitted to a private hospital in Hyderabad and treated. He died on Tuesday when he was being brought back to the Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in Kalaburagi.

Apart from the deceased, Karnataka has confirmed five other positive cases of the novel coronavirus. The fifth case, confirmed on Thursday is of a 26-year-old man who recently returned from Greece.

The patient has been admitted and isolated at a hospital and his condition is stable, a department media bulletin said.

The day also saw the education department declaring summer holidays for students from kindergarten to class six and study leave for higher classes in the city as a precautionary measure.

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