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Palagummi Sainath

Sainath
Official website

Palagummi Sainath (1957-), the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for journalism, literature, and creative communications arts, is an award winning Indian development journalist - a term he himself avoids, instead preferring to call himself a 'rural reporter' or simply 'reporter' - and photojournalist focusing on social problems, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermaths of Globalization in India. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country A journalist (also called a newspaperman) is a person who practices Journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events trends Photojournalism is a particular form of Journalism (the collecting editing and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast that creates images in order to tell Rural areas can be large and isolated (also referred to as "the country" and/or "the countryside over the course of time For other uses see Love Affair or Scandal An affair may refer to a form of nonmonogamy, to Infidelity or to Adultery. Poverty (also called penury) is deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life including food clothing shelter and safe Drinking water, and Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones He spends between 270 and 300 days a year in the rural interior (in 2006, over 300 days) and has done so for the past 14 years. He is the Rural Affairs Editor for The Hindu, and contributes his columns to India Together, where they are archived. The Hindu is a single-edition English-language Indian newspaper His work has won praise from the likes of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen who referred him as "one of the world's great experts on famine and hunger". Amartya Kumar Sen CH (Hon (অমর্ত্য কুমার সেন Ômorto Kumar Shen) (born 3 November 1933) is an Indian A famine is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any Faunal species which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional Malnutrition, Starvation Hunger is a feeling experienced usually followed by a desire to Eat.

Contents

Early life

Sainath was born into a distinguished family in Andhra Pradesh. He is the grandson of former President of India, V. V. Giri [1] and was educated by the Jesuits in Madras at Loyola College. Varahagiri Venkata Giri (వరాహగిరి వేంకట గిరి (10 August 1894 – 23 June 1980 commonly known as V The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order Loyola College in Maryland is a private Coeducational University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with the His preoccupation with social problems and commitment to a political perspective began when he was a student in college. He is a graduate of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi where he was part of an activist student population. _____________________________________________________________The sprawling campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University (जवाहरलाल नेहरू विश्वविद्यालय Delhi (दिल्ली ਦਿੱਲੀ دلی d̪ɪlːiː sometimes referred to as Dilli) is the second largest metropolis of India, with a population Student activism is work done by students to effect political environmental economic or social change He is now an Executive Council member of the same university. After receiving a Master's degree in history, he launched his career as a journalist at the United News of India in 1980 where he received the news agency's highest individual award. History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology United News of India ( UNI is one of the two primary Indian news agencies. An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize Excellence in a certain field a certificate of excellence He then worked for the Blitz, then a major South Asian weekly in Mumbai with a circulation of 600,000, first as foreign affairs editor and then as deputy editor, which he continued for ten years. Mumbai ( Marathi:,, IPA: formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the financial Editing Language, Images or Sound through correction condensation organization and other modifications in various media For the last fifteen years he has been visiting faculty at Sophia Polytechnic's Social Communications Media course, inspiring a whole generation of young women journalists.

Sainath then toured ten drought-stricken states in India, about which he ruefully recalled later,

That's when I learned that conventional journalism was above all about the service of power. A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply You always give the last word to authority. I got a couple of prizes which I didn't pick up because I was ashamed. [2]

He has also said: "There are two kinds of journalists. One kind are journalists, the other are stenographers. "

As a development journalist

There was little doubt from the beginning that he would make a great voice for development. K A Abbas described him thus in 1984, "Sainath is incorrigible, irreverent, indefatigable and, at times, infuriating. To this I shall add one more word: incorruptible. Friends I introduce you to the most irreverent voice in Indian journalism. I bring to you the man who will go through life being the boy who said, 'The Emperor has no clothes'. . . . . I do not know another journalist who cuts to the heart of a matter, past all hypocrisy and camouflage, so clearly and with such humour. I do not know another journalist who can make compassion so compelling. "

The IMF-led economic reforms launched in 1991 by Manmohan Singh constituted a watershed in India's economic history and in Sainath's journalistic career. The International Monetary Fund ( IMF) is an International organization that oversees the Global financial system by following the Macroeconomic Economic reforms in India is something which is under close study Manmohan Singh (ਮਨਮੋਹਨ ਸਿੰਘ (born 26 September 1932 is the 17th Economic history of India, in the sense of the meaning of the term economic in its current sense is at least 5000 years old He felt that the media's attention was moving from "news" to "entertainment" and consumerism and lifestyles of the urban elite gained prominence in the newspapers which rarely carried news of the reality of poverty in India. "Popular press" redirects here note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint "The Popular Press" News is any new information or information on Current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or Word of mouth See also Entertainment (disambiguation and The Entertainer (disambiguation Entertainment is an activity designed to give people "I felt that if the Indian press was covering the top 5 per cent, I should cover the bottom 5 per cent",says Sainath. ([3])

He quit Blitz and in 1993 applied for a Times of India fellowship. The Times of India ( TOI) is a leading English-language Broadsheet Daily newspaper in India. At the interview he spoke of his plans to report from rural India. When an editor asked him, "Suppose I tell you my readers aren't interested in this stuff", Sainath riposted, "When did you last meet your readers to make any such claims on their behalf?"

He got the fellowship and took to the back roads in the ten poorest districts of five states. It meant covering close to 100,000 km across India using 16 forms of transportation, including walking 5,000km on foot([4]). He credits two sympathetic editors at the Times with much of his success in getting the articles published in their present form, since it is one among the very newspapers that has been accused of shifting the onus from page one to page three. The Times of India ( TOI) is a leading English-language Broadsheet Daily newspaper in India. The paper ran 84 reports by Sainath across 18 months, many of them subsequently reprinted in his book, Everybody Loves A Good Drought. Everybody Loves a Good Drought is a book written by P Sainath about his research findings of poverty in the rural districts of India

For more than two years, the book remained No. 1 amongst non-fiction bestsellers on diverse lists across the country. Eventually, it entered the ranks of Penguin India’s all-time best sellers. It is considered THE handbook for NGO activists, with its direct reporting style and sharp focus on social and economic cleavages in society. Typically Sainath, he gave all the royalties from this huge best-seller to fund prizes for young rural journalists.

Canadian documentary film maker Joe Moulins made a film about Sainath titled "A tribe of his own", and when the jury at the Edmonton Film Festival picked its winner, it decided to include Sainath in the award along with the maker of the film because this was 'an award about inspiration. '

His writing has provoked responses that include the revamping of the Drought Management Programs in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, development of a policy on indigenous medical systems in Malkangiri in Orissa, and revamping of the Area Development Program for tribal people in Madhya Pradesh state. Tamil Nadu ( Tamil:, Country of the Tamils, t̪ɐmɨɻ n̪aːɽɯ is one of the 28 states of India. Orissa (ଓଡ଼ିଶା is a state located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. Madhya Pradesh (abbreviated as MP) ( Hindī: मध्य प्रदेश pronounced, Translation: Middle Province) often The Times of India institutionalized his methods of reporting and sixty other leading newspapers initiated columns on poverty and rural development. ([5]) They made his journalistic name and earned him numerous prizes, both national and international. The prizes furnished him credibility and also money to go on freelancing. A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer

Through his work on the India's social problems, Sainath changed the nature of the development debate in his own country and across the world. His best selling book, Everybody Loves a Good Drought, helped focus public attention on the condition of India's rural poor, increasing public awareness and support. In the last decade, he has spent on average three-fourths of the year with village people,reporting extensively on agrarian crises due to the neo-liberal policies like globalization, privatisation and related government policies and the shift in its priorities, on the lack of sensitivity and efficiency by the government and the bureaucracy and on farmer suicides in Wayanad, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and on the plight of dalits, writing articles for various newspapers. Originally coined by its critics and opponents " neoliberalism " is a label referring to the recent reemergence of Economic liberalism or Classical liberalism Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of business from the Public sector (government to the Private sector (business Wayanad District, in the north-east of Kerala, India, was formed on November 1 1980 as the 12th district by carving out areas from Maharashtra ( Marathi: mahārāṣṭra, IPA) is a state located on the western coast of India. Dalit is a self designation for group of people of South Asian descent who were traditionally regarded as untouchables or low Caste.

As a reporter, he proved the power of the Press repeatedly. In one state after another, the bureaucracy and politicians acted upon his stories, preferring this to confrontation or denial. Today, more than any other journalist in India, he has been responsible for the attention brought to the raging farmers' suicides in the country. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Agriculture Commission in Andhra Pradesh to suggest ways for improving agriculture in that state.

The crisis states are AP, Rajasthan and Orissa. In the single district of Anantapur, in Andhra Pradesh, between 1997 and 2000, 1800+ people have committed suicides, but when the state assembly requested these statistics, only 54 were listed. [see April 29 and May 6 issues of The Hindu[6], for more details]. Since suicide is considered a crime in India, the district crime records bureaus list categories for suicide - unrequited love, exams, husbands' and wives' behavior, etc. ; in Anantapur, the total from these categories was less than 5%. WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Anantapur (అనంతపురం is a city (population 466359 and a The largest number, 1061 people, were listed as having committed suicide because of "stomach ache". This fatal condition results from consuming Ciba-Geigy's pesticide, which the government distributes free, and is almost the only thing the rural poor can readily acquire!![7]

At the same time, he writes articles on international economics and politics and critiquing the "corporate-owned" mass media. A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances used to kill a pest. According to him the shift from hard-hitting, truth-seeking journalism to innocuous, promotional stenography goes hand in hand with the increase of globalization. The photographs he has taken in rural India have resulted in several highly acclaimed photo exhibitions.

He is currently the rural affairs editor of The Hindu. The Hindu is a single-edition English-language Indian newspaper

One of his more recent projects, on dalits, for The Hindu, is nearly complete, and he is planning a book based on this work. This project covers a gigantic area across 15 states in India. He has already covered 150,000 km and has five more states to go. When the newspapers were unwilling to fund beyond a point, Sainath spent from his own resources, his savings, his provident fund, his gratuity - avoiding corporate sponsors. [8]

His current project is on the agrarian crisis nationwide, particularly those regions where its effects are most severe. He has filed over 100 reports on the agrarian crisis in recent years. He has also himself taken all the photographs that go with those reports. And the pictures documenting the families of the suicide victims makes up the only photo record of its kind in existence.

Quotes and opinions

More of his opinions on various topics can be found here

Criticisms

Surjit S. Bhalla's critique of Sainath's article on media in Outlook points out inconsistencies in the statistics used by Sainath, and questions journalist integrity. Outlook is an Indian weekly English Newsmagazine in publication since October 1995. Salil Tripathi penned another critical view of statistics and inferences by Sainath in the same article.

Aadisht questions the validity of statistics used by Sainath in an article about maternal mortality.

Honours and awards

One of the few Indians to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award, (year:2007, category:Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts [13]), equivalent of the Asian Nobel Prize.

Sainath has won over 30 national and international journalism awards and fellowships in 26 years as a journalist, including the Ramon Magsaysay journalism award in 2007, the European Commission's Natali Prize ([14]) in 1994 and the Boerma Journalism Prize from the UN FAO ([15]) in 2001(along with CNN International's Jim Clancy)-- considered as the most important award in development journalism, the Amnesty International global award for human rights journalism in 2000,the PUCL Human Rights Journalism Award, and the B.D. Goenka award for excellence in journalism in 2000. The European Commission (formally the Commission of the European Communities) is the executive branch of the European Union. Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. CNN International (CNNI is an English language Television network that is commonly referred to as CNN and carries news current affairs and business programming Jim Clancy is an anchor on CNN International, based in Atlanta Georgia. Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is a Western based international Non-governmental organization which defines its mission as "to Ramnath Goenka ( रामनाथ गोयंका)( April 3, 1904 &ndash October 5, 1991) was a newspaper baron of India In June 2006 Sainath won the Judges' prize (newspaper category) in the 2005 Harry Chapin Media Awards [16]. Harry Forster Chapin ( December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer Songwriter, and Humanitarian This is for his series in The Hindu on the ongoing agrarian crisis in Vidharbha and other areas. The Harry Chapin Media Awards honour print and electronic media for work "that focuses on the causes of hunger and poverty," including "work on economic inequality and insecurity, unemployment, homelessness, domestic and international policies and their reform, community empowerment, sustainable development, food production. "

In 1984 he was a Distinguished International Scholar at the University of Western Ontario and in 1988 at Moscow University. The University of Western Ontario (known as Western, as well as UWO or Western Ontario) is a public research University located in London He has participated in many international initiatives on communications such as the second and third round table on Global Communications sponsored by the UNESCO (1990 and 1991) and in the UNHCR sponsored World Information Campaign on Human Rights (1991). United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR (established December 14, 1950) is a He was conferred with the prestigious Raja-Lakshmi Award in the year 1993 from Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation, Chennai. Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation is a Charitable Trust that promotes Arts Sciences Literature Medicine Journalism Humanities and other intellectual pursuits and to honour distinguished Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation is a Charitable Trust that promotes Arts Sciences Literature Medicine Journalism Humanities and other intellectual pursuits and to honour distinguished

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