With All The Covid-19 Casualties Of The Media Men, The Pandemic Also Crushed The Indian Mainstream Media Industry
By NJ Thakuria,
New Age Islam
23 November 2020
One more Indian journalist falls prey to
the Covid-19 pandemic as Noida based scribe Pankaj Shukla breathed his last on 20 November 2020. Hailed
from Bareilly locality of Uttar Pradesh in central India, Shukla (50) was
admitted at JP Hospital, Noida where he succumbed to novel corona virus
infection aggravated ailments.
Shukla studied at Allahabad University and
started his journalism career with popular Hindi newspapers like Amar Ujala and
Dainik Jagaran.
Later the journalist with a charming
personality shifted to electronic platforms like Janmat TV, Khabar Bharti, News
30, NewsExpress, etc.
Very recently Shukla launched his own you
tube channel Rajsatta Express and worked as its editor-in-chief.
“India has lost 50 working journalists to
Covid-19 complications, where as the worldwide media corona-casualties rise to
469 in 56 countries. In fact, it emerges as the second most affected country
among media persons after Peru followed by Brazil, Bangladesh, Mexico, USA,
Pakistan, UK, Afghanistan, Russia, France, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Nepal etc,”
said Blaise Lempen, general-secretary of Press Emblem Campaign
(www.pressemblem.ch), an international media rights body based in Switzerland.
Haryana based journalist Rakesh Taneja (51)
died of Covid-19 at a Faridabad hospital on 16 November. Taneja used to work
for Zee News, Amar Ujala, Dainik Bhaskar, etc and earned reputations while
reporting on crime and legal beats. Orissa’s television scribe Prabir Kumar
Pradhan (35) succumbed to the virus infection on 5 November. Pradhan used to
work for News18 (Odia) news channel and died in the hospital.
A Tripura based video journalist Jitendra
Debbarma (46) lost his battle against the corona infection on 20 October.
Debbarma worked for a Kakborok language cable channel named Chini Khorang
and succumbed to Covid-19 complications
at Khumulwng hospital. Mysuru based journalist
Pavan Hettur (35), who worked for Kannada daily Prajavani died of the
virus infection on 18 October at a private hospital.
Patna based photojournalist Krishna Mohan
Sharma (63), who worked for Times of India, died of corona complications on 15
October while undergoing treatment at
AIIMS, New Delhi. Same day, veteran cricket journalist & commentator
Kishore Bhimani (81), died after contracting the virus at a hospital in
Kolkata.
The robust Indian media family lost at
least twelve journalists to corona-complications in September. Ludhiana based
veteran journalist Ashwani Kapoor (70), who worked for highly circulated newspaper Punjab Kesari,
succumbed to Covid-19 at a private hospital on 29 September. Guwahati based
news presenter in All India Radio, Golap
Saikia (52) died with corona-infections on 26 September at a city-based private
hospital.
Patna’s senior journalist Arun Kumar Verma (68), who was associated
with various Prasar Bharti outlets died during Covid-19 treatment on 22
September. Indore journalist Manoj Binwal
(55), who was associated with Hindi newspaper Prajatantra, died of the virus
infection while undergoing treatment on 20 September. A day back, Agra’s
journalist Ami Adhar Nidar (50), who worked for widely circulated
DainikJagaran, passed away with the infection.
Jammu based scribe Anil Srivastava (68),
who was associated with United News of India, succumbed to Covid-19 on 18
September at a government run hospital.
Same day Jabalpur’s journalist Harish Choubey (60), who worked for
popular Hindi newspaper DainikBhaskar, expired with the corona virus infection.
Aurangabad based journalist Rahul Dolare
(49) died on 14 September at a government hospital. Same day, Chennai’s popular journalist-actor Florent C Pereira (67) died
of Covid-19.
Punjab’s
Abohar based journalist Naresh
Bajaj (57), who was associated with
SachKahoon newspaper, succumbed to corona-complications on 10 September.
Ravinder Kumar (30) from Himachal Pradesh, who worked for DainikJagran, died of
Covid-19 on 9 September. Assam’s rural
reporter Dhaneswar Rabha (35) died at Guwahati medical college hospital on
6 September. Rabha is the first scribe
in the region to die of Covid-19. Next day, senior journalist Ashim Dutta (65)
passed away with the infection at
Silchar medical college hospital.
Months back, Dhanbad’s journalist Sanjiv Sinha,
Gorakhpur’s photo journalist Rajiv Ketan, Mumbai’s senior film-journalist Shyam
Sarma, Nellore’s scribe Narayanam
Seshacharyulu, Pune’s television reporter Pandurang Raikar, Kanpur’s television journalist
Neelanshu Shukla, Patiala’s
photojournalist Jai Deep,
Tirupati’s television reporter Madhusudan Reddy and video journalist M
Parthasarathy succumbed to infections.
The list includes journalist Prakash Deshmukh from Mumbai,
veteran journalist Ashok Churi from Palghar, television reporter Ramanathan and
news videographer E Velmurugan from Chennai, news presenter Davinder Pal Singh
from Chandigarh, television scribe Manoj Kumar from Hyderabad, journalist
Pankaj Kulashrestha from Agra, journalists Simanchal Panda, K Ch Ratnam and
Priyadarshi Patnaik from Orissa.
Kolkata’s photojournalist Ronny Roy became
the first Indian scribe to die of Covid-19. Emerged as a severe health hazard,
the pandemic has affected thousands of
journalists and media employees in India as they are playing the role of
corona-warriors along with the doctors, nurses, sanitation workers, police
personnel etc. The increase of media corona-casualties is precisely tempted by
the insensitive approach of editor-managements’ towards the employees while
engaging them on duties with little pre-cautions,” said Nava Thakuria, the PEC
representative in India.
With all the casualties, the pandemic also
crushed the Indian mainstream media industry to a larger extent. Many print
media owners have stopped publishing physical newspapers and shifted to the
digital space. Some print managements even closed down their editions in
different places, reduced pages, cut salaries and even layoff employees
including senior journalists citing the reason of shrinking advertisement
revenues.
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