Dana Majhi of Kalahandi is now a global sensation. He carried the body of his wife on his shoulder and walked on along with his weeping daughter for 12 km from the hospital towards his native place. His sole purpose was that he was to cremate his wife’s body in his village before the body was decomposed. There was apparently no help from the Government authorities to transport and cremate the dead wife of Majhi.
This story ran in media. It was not the story of disrespecting the body but one of demonstrating the broken picture of Odisha’s development.
This news story immediately impacted the Government policy. The long pending Mahaprayana scheme was declared. Media acted as an agent of change in the process.
The accusation against the media goes that media hyped Majhi’s story and it very decently choreographed the event. But the fact of the matter is that media did not create the news. It just narrated it taking its perfect shots.
Equally same is the story of Nagada’s malnutrition problem in Jajpur. Extreme hunger there mocks at the Government policies like food security and its flagship MGNREGA scheme. Media brings out news of the poor and marginalized people reminding the policy makers of the fact that the objective of democracy is to end mass hunger, poverty and un-employment.
Very recently, the former Secretary General of UNO Kofi Annan was in news with a statement that it is possible to end the world hunger. The world hunger has in fact not ended yet. In 2,000 the world leaders in the forum of UNO met and set Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The first MDG was to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. And the other MDGs were very closely related aiming to create a world where people would be no longer condemned to a life of extreme poverty. But the latest report reveals that India is far behind the schedule of achieving the development goals. As per new statistics in India, the people below the poverty line (BPl) constitute 22 per cent of the total population close to nearly 250million people if the per capita purchasing power is limited to 1 dollar. But if the purchasing power parity enhances to 2 dollars, the BPl number will be around 80 per cent.
Statistics are notoriously easy to manipulate in order to present the desired picture to support the favoured policies. It is hard to believe that poverty is eradicated despite the stories of poverty infusing the power in people to stand up and speak out.
It is observed the poorer the country, the weaker is the media. It is evident in African countries. Sometimes there is exception in it. The countries like Bahrain, Soudi Arabia and China are rich but media there poorly performs. In India although media is an infant industry, it still plays a vital role in poverty eradication and prepares for its greater involvement in tackling the policy and pressurizes the policy changes.
In recent times there have appeared a number of media reports relating to alleviation of poverty, hunger and unemployment. A report says the poorest will be hit hardest by the climate change. The land reforms aiming to provide land to landless will bring about a structural change to end rural poverty. Another report quoting the global hunger index depicts that although India is the second fastest growing economy in the world, more Indians remain hungry than the Chinese. The journalists come with data of maternal mortality rate; ratio of school attendance, access of people to affordable essential drugs and dietary energy consumption.
Media is not silent on scams and scandals issues relating to irregularities in public distribution systems, ration card distribution, food grain prices in Government shops. Thus media creates a public watch. This watch becomes vital on issues such as food security and on access to public service. It plays a scrutinizing role contributing to the development process.
(The writer is an advocate, an author and a columnist, a former national president and secretary general, National Audit Federation (under CAG); E-mail Id: gcparida@gmail.com)