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Impact |
KL MAKES NEWS!
Khabar Lahariya has caught the attention of the mainstream media at various times in its history.
The Hindu, July 12, 2003
Indian Express, March 31, 2004
Civil Society, April 2007
Trishul Tej, July 6, 2007
Shree India, July 8, 2007
Aaj, July 8, 2007
Tehelka, July 21, 2007
Rashtriya Sahara, July 8, 2007
Voice of Lucknow, July 8, 2007
Hindustan, September 24, 2007
Hindustan Times, July 22, 2007
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CHALLENGING GENDER RELATIONS
Entering the field of political journalism has been a major breakthrough for the Khabar Lahariya team. The newspaper did not report on political news, and not without reason. Politics in the traditional sense was not a domain in which the women, belonging to poor, marginalised communities, had engaged. So when the women decided to ‘blank out’ the Lok Sabha election because they felt under-confident and lacked information, we tried to remedy that. We conducted a crash course on politics, then planned and produced three ‘election specials’ with the team. These were not only popular with the readers but left the team feeling empowered. This marks an important shift in Khabar Lahariya’s journey – by reporting on national-level politics from their own locations, women were actually commenting on macro-political events and making their opinion available in the public domain. Naturally this challenges the hegemonic control of knowledge by powerful sections of society.
What could Khabar Lahariya offer that other newspapers did not? Clearly, a great deal. The three special issues contained interviews with local candidates from different political parties, information and opinion pieces. |
STRENGTHENING GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Articles in Khabar Lahariya have both highlighted cases of violence, bureaucratic negligence, and official apathy as well as simply provided information that the community did not have. Readers have used some of these articles to demand action or greater information. Khabar Lahariya has made it a point to follow up on these stories. Not all the articles can claim to have generated ‘positive results’ but they have, in several cases, sparked off a process of questioning.
Examples of the effectiveness of Khabar Lahariya reports:
- A report on stone quarrying in nearby Bharatkup highlighted its disastrous impact on the environment as well as the nexus between the contractors and administration. Farmers in the area began raising questions.
- A report on Sukhrampur village where nearly all the villagers had tuberculosis resulted in some health officers being pulled up for negligence and the villagers receiving treatment.
- Khabar Lahariya reported on police brutality against a Kol woman. The case was taken up by a local NGO and the reports added to the pressure on the police.
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CHANGING LIVES
Apart from all the wider impacts of Khabar Lahariya in the world of rural Uttar Pradesh, the newspaper has had a very crucial impact on the lives of the women who work as its editorial and distribution team. They’ve had to push at the boundaries of the spaces they are conventionally expected to inhabit – whether to study further than they have been given the opportunity to, or negotiate the public sphere in an active sense.
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More fundamentally, all the members of the team have become reflective about their gender, class and class identities, and the way in which this moulds their lives and work. Take for example Kavita, who was married at 14. Inspite of much resistance to her studying, and financial constraints, she studied at a residential school and completed her education. After almost ten years of being in a marriage where she had no support or respect, she was able to make the decision to leave and live independently. Shanti, another senior member of the team, is from the Kol community, a scheduled tribe. She had had no access to education as a child, and began to study in her mid-thirties. This had a huge impact on her life: it gave her a confidence she never had before, and allowed her to take up a job, become informed and articulate and give her a mobility that she had never experienced. |
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