Has the media failed in its duty as a watchdog?
It is the failure of the 'intelligent intellectual' and the well to do classes. Nobody in the media except Sainath (P Sainath) is interested in agriculture. He was saying the other day when the Lakme Fashion Show or cricket or something like that happens, there are 500 media people covering it. Everything is commercialised today.
Yes, the media can play a major role as a watchdog but they are around only when there is a famine. They don't come when there is chronic hunger and under nourishment. It is shameful that a country like ours has so many under-nourished children. Every third child born has low birth weight. The brain development is affected. But we don't care.
If there is famine somewhere and ten people die of starvation, the media is all active. The media could have been an early warning system.
Unless it is a prolonged and sustained campaign, hunger-free India cannot be achieved. By 2007, we should have had substantial freedom from hunger but 2007 is over and it is a dream and not a reality.
Image: A farmer returns home in Kamalasagar, village, some 45 km from Agartala. Photograph: Strdel/AFP/Getty Images
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