How a hatemonger used a schoolgirl to concoct a stabbing story to create unrest in Honnavar

Tumakuru, Apr 12: Fearing the spread of COVID-19 in Muddenahalli village, the villagers shifted to living in tents in nearby fields with most of their belongings.

Kariyappa, one of the villagers said, "We were scared of the COVID-19 spread, so we came here."

Around 60 families of the village lived in tents for three days, before they returned to their houses on the advice of the Tehsildar.

So far, 214 COVID-19 cases, including six deaths, have been reported in the state of Karnataka.

With 34 deaths and 909 new positive COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the total number of coronavirus cases in India on Sunday reached 8356, including 716 cured and discharged, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Mysuru, Mar 27: A 35-year old man from Mysuru, Karnataka was tested positive for coronavirus infection on Thursday, taking the state-wide count to 52 altogether.

This new case could be an indication that Covid-19 has entered into the third stage of community transmission in Karnataka, as the infected person neither has any travel history nor have been in contact with Covid-affected persons.

The patient works in the quality assurance section of a pharmaceutical company in Nanjangud in Mysuru district, and has been in continuous contact with medical care professionals.

Mysuru DC Mr Abhiram G Shankar informs that detailed investigation is under process.

He is currently undergoing treatment at an isolation ward in a designated hospital in Mysuru. So far his seven primary contacts have been traced and they are under home quarantine, Mr Abhiram Shankar said.

A 35 year old Mysurean, and another 46 year old Keralite, both who had come from Dubai, were the first and second cases tested positive for Covid-19 in Mysuru. They are also currently kept under isolation.

Mysuru district administration has identified 898 international passengers in Mysuru district including 152 in the taluks. Among them, while 149 persons have completed home quarantine period by now, the rest are still in isolation.

Veteran journalist P. Sainath has said that the nation is in a crisis. And this crisis is not limited to just the rural area. It has become a national crisis at various areas such as agriculture, education, economy, job creation etc.

He was delivering the endowment lecture on the topic ‘Indian democracy at the post-liberalization and post-truth era’ at Media Manthan 2020 organized by the PG department of journalism and mass communication at St Aloysius College (Autonomous). 

Mr Sainath said that the many policies adopted in the 90s led to India becoming unusually unequal. Referring to the speech Ambedkar had made at the Constituent Assembly while handing over the draft of the Constitution, Mr Sainath said, “Ambedkar had warned about the weakness of Indian democracy that liberty without equality allows the supremacy of a few over the multitude. Liberty, equality and fraternity must be kept together as we cannot have one without the other.” 

Mr Sainath stated that the agrarian crisis was no longer about the loss of productivity, employment or about farmer suicide; it was a societal, civilizational crisis. Commenting on the lopsided policies such as cow-slaughter ban, he explained how cow slaughter ban had adversely affected many industries due to their interdependency. While Muslims who slaughtered cows were rendered helpless, the cattle traders who were mostly OBCs lost their earnings as the cattle prices crashed. An important industry like Kolhapur sandals industry in Maharashtra went bankrupt as a result of the cow slaughter ban in Maharashtra. He said the policymakers had no idea how the rural industries were interconnected. Demonetisation too devastated the rural economy as 98 percent of rural transactions happen through cash. 

Mr Sainath also spoke about the crisis of inequality which affects the Dalits and the Adivasis far more than anyone else as 90 percent of the rural households take home less than Rs 10,000/- per month. “Women are yet another group whose labour is never counted in the gross domestic product. Women and girls globally do unpaid work which amounts to about 12.5 billion working hours per year. Monetarily speaking, this is worth 10.8 trillion dollars,” Mr Sainath added. 

Speaking about the crisis of jobs Mr Sainath said that major companies were laying off employees just to create more profits for the investors and the adoption of artificial intelligence in the industry would further destroy millions of jobs.

Rector of St Aloysius College Institutions Fr Dionysius Vaz SJ, Principal Dr (Fr) Praveen Martis SJ, HOD of Journalism and Mass Communication department Dr (Fr) Melwyn Pinto SJ were present.

‘Veerappan and Vijay Mallya’s business models are interesting!’

Addressing the gathering during his endowment lecture on Friday, Mr Sainath made an interesting comment on the so called ‘revenue model’. “Whenever I visit IIMs and IITs for lectures on my PARI project, the students there ask me what my revenue model for my project is. I tell them that I do not have a revenue model. In fact, journalism does not begin with a revenue model. Gandhiji, Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh were all great journalists. But they did not have a revenue model,” Mr Sainath said.

On a lighter note, he said that the best revenue model that he liked was that of forest brigand Veerappan and liquor baron Vijay Mallya. “Veerappan ruled the forest for forty years and from the top ministers to the villagers he could dictate terms and liver royally. Similarly, Mallya’s revenue model was to steal the banks and run away abroad and live like a king,” Mr Sainath added.

Journalism is not and can never be a business. It is a calling, he opined. While newspaper can be a business, television can be a business, journalism per se cannot be reduced to a business. “Unfortunately today, journalists are recruited on a contract basis and they have no bargaining power; and there are no unions to fight for their cause. Hence, they are at the mercy of the corporate media houses for their survival and are made to write stories that cannot be called journalism,” Mr Sainath said.

Answering a question as to the pressures he faced as a journalist, he said that external pressures from the government or others could be very well handled. It is the internal pressures from once own media house that journalists find it difficult to manage.