Patiala, August 4
Noted journalist, writer and thinker P Sainath on Tuesday likened the raids on offices of newspapers to ordinances of the East India Company before the Independence. Speaking at Punjabi University’s Dr Ravinder Singh Ravi Memorial Lecture, he said Indian journalism was affected due to its corporate ownerships which gave merely 0.67 per cent coverage to rural India.
Sainath said the Indian press was a product of the freedom struggle. “Today, it is politically free but imprisoned by profit; and now, self-imprisoned in the prism of profit,” he said.
Pointing towards the raids on the offices of a newspaper group, he said it was being ‘punished’ because it reported on the bodies left on the shores of the Ganga and Saryu rivers. “The advertisements of a newspaper also came down after it reported on the Rafale deal,” he said.
Sainath also spoke on the lack of acknowledgement of women as farmers. — TNS
Media houses punished for reporting truth: Sainath
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