India continues to lose scribes to Covid-19

Geneva/Guwahati : One more journalist falls prey to the Covid-19 pandemic as Noida based scribe Pankaj Shukla  breathed his last on Friday night (20 November). Hailed from Bareilly locality of Uttar Pradesh, 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 AmarUjala and DainikJagaran. Later the journalist with a charming personality shifted to electronic platforms like Janmat TV, Khabar Bharti, News 30, News Express, 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, AmarUjala, DainikBhaskar, 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 PunjabKesari, 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.