Regional media

Manik Ray, 
Guwahati, Assam
How did you find out about the kala-azar epidemic?
I heard that 9 people had died due to high fever in the Panikhaiti area (10 km from Guwahati). I went to the area and learnt from the doctors that required medicines were not available in Assam. The  local elders told me that this type of fever was common in the area since their childhood. Seeing the pathetic situation I decided to do a story to create awareness and send a message across to the government.

How did the department concerned react?
The government ordered a detailed investigation at that moment of time. But later it appeared that the whole
effort was fruitless.

Did you get any help from people or from any organisation in collecting data for your story?
Yes, some elders of the locality helped me in this regard. They were illiterate but they informed me that the disease was a common occurrence since their childhood days.

Did you face any problem after you filed the story?
Yes, the concerned department was reluctant about such news because the government had already announced complete eradication of kala-azar from Assam. But my story compelled the health minister Himanta Biswa Sarmah to confess in the Assembly session that the kala-azar was still a threat.
 

Monalisa Gogoi on how an Assamese reporter blew the lid off lies propagated by the state government.
   The state government had declared that Assam was free from kalazar despite several cases being reported and Manik Ray’s exclusive front page report in Amar Asom belied government’s claim.
Instead of taking necessary action, the state health department tried to suppress the cases. But once the Amar Asom report was published, the government admitted in the Assembly that the kala-azar virus exists in Assam. The state health department brought in RK39 kits from Bihar to detect the virus in Assam. The injection for treatment of kala-azar was made available in the Guwahati Medical College Hospital.

Chinmay Pati,
Puri, Dharitri, Orissa
What prompted you to file this report?
I was following this issue since one year as locals in Kakatpur were complaining that they were not getting jobs under MNREGA. Thereafter, I filed 2/3 reports to draw the district administration’s attention.

How were you able to access the letter written by the MLA to District Collector?
I am here for the last five years, and  have cultivated a few sources in government offices. One of my sources informed me about this confidential letter (MLA told the collector to use machines instead of manpower). Thereafter, I somehow managed a copy of that letter.

Your publication is edited by a ruling party MP, so how did you get clearance for the story? Didn’t the editorial policy contradict?

I am not worried about the editorial policy; the news desk takes the decision. I filed the story and it got published on the front page the next day.
At a time when the Orissa government is facing criticism for alleged corruption in MNREGA, a ruling party MLA has brought in further embarrassment by asking the District collector to use machines instead of man power in a project. Here it should be mentioned that, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), notified on September, 2005, provides a legal guarantee of 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household. The objective of the Act is to supplement wage employment opportunities in rural areas and in the process also build up durable assets.

Rabi Mallick, MLA of Kakatpur constituency of Puri District, has written to the Collector on his official letter head, that also had his signature and seal, asking him to use machines instead of manpower in Balipantal-Dhobanali irrigation project on 2nd April 2011. The estimated cost of the project was Rs 10 lakh and 6000 labour days were to be used in completing it. Unfortunately, the progress of the project is very slow as only 2 per cent of the work has been completed in 2010-11. Around 6,620 persons applied for the work, but have not been recruited so far. The collector in turn has asked DRDA to suggest  steps to fulfill the MLA’s request.

This story focuses on how politicians use their influence and position to derail the objective of welfare projects. This report published in the front page of ‘Dharitri’ is a ‘scoop’ as no other leading dailies of Orissa had carried it out. It also ushered a good impact, as few activists lodged a complaint with the police against the MLA and locals in Kakatpur too raised their voices against the system. The letter written by the MLA surely violates the provisions of the MNREGA act. This news story exposed how money meant for providing employment under the act was being spent on buying the machines.  

Suketu Shah, Ahmedabad, Gajarat

Suketu Shah is a known name in Gujarati journalism. He has handled numerous beats while being active in this field for last 18 years. He never creates a story out of a press note, instead he first investigates the matter thoroughly and then files the story. He was working with Aakkaal, an afternoon daily, when he did this sensational story of Muslim boys luring Hindu girls into marriage and finally converting them to Islam. The story got published and it led to widespread communal tension as the issue was raised in Gujarat Vidhan Sabha. For the same he got several life threats by fundamentalists but nothing scared him away from telling the truth. He has powerful sources at hand because of which he is able to do sensitive stories. He has got this unconventional approach towards reporting due to which he often develops animosity with criminals and political bigwigs.
 

As a budding journalist in the 1990s, he created ripples by investigating several crime stories, including the one pertaining to Muslim boys falling in love by design with Hindu girls, marrying them and then converting them to Islam. This story triggered widespread controversy due to which Shah he received death threats and was given police protection for a year.

“The bogus bank account story, too, has also got me threats and offers of bribes,” he says. But he hasn’t budged from his mission.  About eight years ago some miscreants tried to kill him when he was on the way home with his wife and daughter. A jeep brushed past him, pushing his motorcycle to the edge of the road. He and his wife were seriously injured.

Six months ago while on his routine beat, PSI Harigiri Goswami rang him up asking for help as his family was in trouble because one Jigar Thakkar had taken a loan in their name through a bogus identity. The Goswami family found that their land in Mahesana had been mortgaged.

Suketu investigated the matter to the core and found out that it was a huge land scam of Rs 2,500 crore which was spread across Gujarat and Maharashtra. A Vadodara based company was cheating the farmers by using bogus documents and securing loans on their behalf from nine nationalised banks. The CBI and CID immediately swung into action after Suketu’s article was published. It was revealed that the company had more than 1,000 bogus bank accounts in the name of farmers in villages across the states.

“Initially, I thought it would be a routine scandal but to my surprise it unravelled like the layers of an onion, getting pealed one by one. I am so happy that the CBI has now taken up the case, he says. 

Amarpreet Singh Patiala, Punjab

Amarpreet Singh is a proofreader with the Punjabi Tribune, a venture of the Tribune Group of Newspapers, and also pursues a degree of Journalism & Mass Communication at Punjabi University, Patiala. His journey to the desk at Tribune was not easy because he earlier had an Electrical Engineering diploma from Chandigarh College of Engineering. His father was a foreman in the pagination department of the Tribune Group, and he had joined as as an Electrician in the newspaper in 1998. But his real passion was journalism and  he kept on trying for a job in the editorial department. He ultimately became a proofreader, in 2006 with the Punjabi Tribune. Amarpreet Singh’s first story as a reporter got him an overwhelming response. He is looking forward for more challenging news assignment in coming days.

When a state which has a high number of cancer patients, spends over Rs 3 crore on the treatment of VVIP Chief Minister’s wife, and all within ten months, it is bound to send shock waves, particularly to those who are directly or indirectly under the grip of this killer disease.

Amarpreet Singh ferreted out this stark reality while pursuing an assignment for his post-graduate course in journalism at the Punjabi University, Patiala.
Using the Right to Information Act (RTI), Singh wanted to know just how much money had been released by the Government of Punjab for the treatment of Surinder Kaur Badal, the ailing wife of Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal who is undergoing treatment of cancer in USA since over a year.

His RTI application provided him with detailed information delivered by Department of General Administration (Cabinet Affairs). The information revealed that so far Rs.3,14,45,615 were released by the Punjab Government (between April 1, 2010 to February 28, 2011) for the treatment Chief Minister’s wife. The treatment costs the state exchequer Rs 94,148 a day. Though the Chief Secretary of Punjab, Subodh Chander Aggarwal, has described this expenditure as ‘done per rules’, there is outrage over the open and naked nepotism on display, as well as a brazen example of applying different standards on one self and ones’ poor constituents.

Amarpreet was following an assignment given to him at his Punjabi University which asked him to use the services of RTI Act. The information he got afterwards naturally made him crack this story as his seniors backed him. This  scoop has whetted his appetite for more challenging news assignments in the future.

T Arunkumar, Mathrubhumi, Kerala

T.  Arunkumar specialises in politics (especially CPM), tourism and education. The highlights of his work are:-

1987: CPM-led Left Democratic Front rule in Kerala.Arun wrote eight days’ series against the anomalies in the agricultural university.

1999: CPM Central Committee introduced Rectification Document. Arun wrote a 3 day-series article on it

2001: State Conference in Kannur. Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan could not defeat Pinarayi Vijayan faction and capture the party apparatus. Arun covered it.

2004: UDF was routed in Kerala in Parliament Elections. Arun wrote 3 day-series article – “Keralamenthe vazhi mari chinthikkan ?” i.e “Why Kerala deviated from the main stream?”

2007: Covered CPM Congress in New Delhi. Was in charge of political reporting in Mathrubhumi for 6 years, until 2 years back.


The famous Land Reforms Act, implemented by the EMS-led Communist ministry of 1967, was under threat from a neo socialist camp within the leftist party. T Arunkumar of Mathrubhumi daily exposed the move to rescind the land reforms rules in a bid to give industry a free rein on agricultural plots.  

The Land Reforms Act was a progressive step aimed at ending the state’s feudal ownership structure. The poor who once could not imagine owning a piece of land became owners of land. It was a step forward for social and economic equality. It ushered in sweeping political and social changes in Kerala. But in the late 1990s a neo socialist group emerged in the CPM. They argued that the ‘obsolete’ land reforms rules should be cancelled. Asserting that only profitable businesses can be sustained, they advocated that Kerala should do away with farming as it wasn’t economically viable.
 

The thrust of their move was that land should be used for industrial growth and Kerala should export products made in factories and import food grains from other states and countries. A note to this effect was sent by the state government’s industries department to the chief minister’s office. 
 
All hell broke loose when Arunkumar exposed this furtive move in Mathrubhumi. First the industries minister went into denial mode. But Arunkumar managed to get a copy of the letter that the industries department had sent to the CM’s office.  The CM also openly said that there was no question of cancelling the Land Reforms Rule.
 
Once Arunkumar broke the story, Kerala media took up this matter which compelled the revenue minister to clarify that the Land Reforms Act will not be diluted.