Acclaimed rural journalist P Sainath launched a unique web portal called People’s Archive for Rural India (PARI) at India International Centre (IIC) here on Monday. The web portal which is getting a lot of attention from the media industry, journalism students, and people in general is an attempt to showcase the rural picture of the country — its dying art and culture, lost skills, protests, agitations, farmer suicides, immigration of rural people to urban areas, and the daily lives of people in rural India.
At a time when mainstream media has sidelined the problems facing in rural India, the website is being claimed as the pioneer of the grass roots journalism.
Sainath’s ambitious project, the web portal is one of its kinds, where articles, videos, audios, photographs with audio captions about rural India can be contributed voluntarily.
Introducing his portal to the media and people, Sainath said, “This portal talks about the everyday lives of everyday people, beginning from people like well diggers, snake catchers, betel planters, and artists in remote villages who are not yet discovered by the main stream media.”
Sainath said, “You don’t look for stories in rural India.” The lost skills, languages and their struggle is a long forgotten tale which PARI is trying to revive back, he added.