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Focus on underdog in New Year

Satyasundar Barik

Janavani, a Oriya daily, gives primacy of place to the plight of dalits on its front page

— Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

EXPERT TALK: Former BBC correspondent in India Mark Tully at the foundation day function of Janavani, a village based social daily newspaper, in Dandamukundapur near Puri on Monday.

DANDAMUKUNDAPUR (Puri): When photographs showing the sky being lighted up or news reports on New Year-eve celebrations in discotheques or lawns of hotels dominated the front pages of many newspapers on Monday, a Bhubaneswar-based Oriya daily 'Janavani' chose to focus on mundane issues.

The newspaper made headlines on dalits of Dandamukundapur of Puri district living in distress. The story vividly describes lives of these agricultural labourers, who suffer from administrative negligence.

The other stories have originated from remote Kantamala of Boudh and Dasapalla of Nayagarh.

On completion of its third year of existence, Janavani, which is claimed to be India's only rural-based social daily, on Monday promised to touch 50,000 villages of Orissa.

The newspaper was brought out to highlight plight of rural masses that were usually overlooked by mainstream media, said its editor Trupti Nayak.

Struggle for space

Agreed eminent journalist Mark Tully, who attended the newspaper's foundation day celebration here, about 30 km from Bhubaneswar.

"There has been change in media character as most of the newspapers have chosen entertainment as their focus area. The villagers are struggling to get space. There should be some medium which could pay attention to voices of hapless villagers," Mr Tully said.

Greatest challenge

He said India was rapidly developing compared to other countries. But the greatest challenge before the country would be to deal with unbalanced growth. "While a small segment of society is making profits in the process, the larger section of the population continues to reel under poverty.

The villagers need to own a newspaper like Janavani, in which they can tell their sorry state-of-affairs," he said.

The patron of Janavani Radhakanta Nayak said, "the newspaper has so far covered 14000 villages under 4733 gram panchayats spreading over 28 districts."

He said about 150 active reporters based in rural set-up fed the news on basic problems of villages and sometimes their solutions.

"We have trained 2500 reporters who contribute to the newspaper on part-time basis," Mr. Nayak, who retired as Secretary, Union Rural Development department, said.

What is the biggest satisfaction in bringing out such a newspaper? "The mainstream medium in Orissa is slowly picking up our stories. That is what we want. Moreover, the villagers themselves now want it," he said.

Mr. Nayak, now a Congress member in the Rajya Sabha, hoped the newspaper would become a mainstream in due course of time by purely sticking to rural and dalit issues.

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