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P. Sainath

@PSainath_org

Dec 23, 2021

1/7. Tweets paraphrasing my open letter to the Chief Justice of India responding to his lament that “the concept of investigative journalism is unfortunately vanishing from the media canvas.” But how and why did that come to be so. Story link at end of thread.
#CJI #mediafreedom

2/7. For about 30 years, I had argued that the Indian media are politically free but imprisoned by profit. Today, they remain imprisoned by profit, but the few independent voices amongst them are increasingly politically imprisoned. Some under the UAPA.
#CJI #mediafreedom

3/7. I do not see the judiciary stepping in to stop this mayhem, whether on governmental corruption, or the mass retrenchment of journalists, the gutting of labour rights, or the misuse of the PM’s title to raise funds free of any kind of transparent audit.
#CJI #mediafreedom

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P. Sainath

@PSainath_org

Dec 20, 2021

1/5. The People’s Archive of Rural India turned 7 today. In just these first 84 months, PARI won 42 awards – one every 59 days on average. Of these, 12 are international awards. And 16 were won for stories done during the lockdown periods. Story link at end of thread
#Anniversary

2/5. First day of last year’s lockdown, the media were declared an essential service. Good – as never had the Indian public needed journalism and journalists more. Stories needed to be told on which people’s lives and livelihoods depended. How did Big Media respond?
#Anniversary

3/5, Big media responded by sacking 2,500 journalists and over 10,000 non-journalist media workers. PARI added 11 people to its staff since April 2020, cut nobody’s pay – and 3 months later, gave promotions and increments to almost all our staffers.
#Anniversary

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P. Sainath

@PSainath_org

Nov 20, 2021

1/7. Why is it so hard for the media to admit that the farmers at Delhi’s gates represent the largest peaceful democratic protest the world has seen in years – that too, organised at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic? Story link at end of thread.
#FarmLaws #FarmLawsRepealed

2/7. Prime Minister Modi ‘apologises’ to the nation not for bringing in obnoxious anti-farmer laws but because, he says, he failed to persuade ‘a section of farmers despite best efforts’ to accept them. So which sections of farmers did he persuade?
#FarmLaws #FarmLawsRepealed

3/7. Denying them entry to Delhi, blocking them with trenches, barbed wire and water cannons, converting their camps into little gulags, vilifying them daily – these were the government’s ‘best efforts’ at persuasion? I’d hate to see their worst ones.
#FarmLaws #FarmLawsRepealed

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P. Sainath

@PSainath_org

Nov 18, 2021

1/4. Chikapar was thrice displaced, first for the HAL MIG project, then for a naval munitions depot and once for a Military Engineering Service station. The only village to have taken on the army, navy, air force – and lost. Story link at end of thread.
#displacement #ruralindia

2/4. All three times, the displacement of this Koraput village was for ‘development.’ Mukta Kadam was evicted the first time herding her five children through jungle on an angry monsoon night. The second time, she was thrown out with her grandchildren.
#displacement #ruralindia

3/4. The Chikapar land taken for the MIG project was not used for that purpose, nor returned to the original owners. That is, Gadaba tribals (like Mukta Kadam), other Adivasis like Parojas and Doms (a Dalit community).
#displacement #ruralindia #Dalits

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P. Sainath

@PSainath_org

Aug 15, 2021

1/7. Bhagat Singh Jhuggian, 93, is one of India’s last living freedom fighters. Expelled from school, an official circular called him ‘dangerous’ and a ‘revolutionary’ – at age 11! He became a courier for the radical underground. Story link at end of thread.
#IndependenceDay2021

2/7. His reaction to being thrashed and thrown out of Government Elementary School, Samundra in Hoshiarpur, Punjab was: ‘Now I’m free to join the anti-British struggle.’ He did. By the time he was 16, the police were more scared of him than he was of them.
#IndependenceDay2021

3/7. This foot-soldier of freedom fought for humanity during Partition which for him was the saddest year ever. He often risked his life to save innocents from frenzied communal mobs. Post-I947 he fought for farmers and workers and still does – at age 93.
#IndependenceDay2021

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P. Sainath

@PSainath_org

Jul 7, 2021

1/4. Journalists should not accept awards from governments they cover or critique. If the external auditor of a venture you were invested in was accepting the company’s awards, you would be furious. The journalist is an external auditor to government.
#Media #Awards

2/4. In this respect, journalists are different from musicians, artists, sportspersons, and some other groups. Unlike journalists, those other groups are not likely to be subsequently called upon to scrutinize the government’s functioning.
#Media #Awards

3/4. The point of non-acceptance is less about governments and more about the personal and professional ethical protocols of the journalist. I do not seek to impose mine on other journalists – others who choose to accept state awards have a right to do so.
#Media #Awards

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