Bengaluru (PTI) "Gauri," a documentary based on late journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, directed by her sister and award-winning director Kavitha Lankesh, has won the 'Best Human Rights' film at the Toronto Women's Film Festival 2022.
The film has been selected also for the South Asian Film festival of Montreal and is in consideration at Doc New York, International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, Sundance Film Festival, and other festivals across the world.
Kavitha Lankesh, in a statement, said the documentary exposes the physical and verbal threats journalists face every day in India.
There were over 200 reported attacks on journalists in India in the last five years, out of which over 30 of them were murder in the last decade, she said. The attacks range in severity but the intention behind them matter, she said.
India's number in the global press freedom index is 150 out of 180, she further said and added that attacks on dissenters and journalists are unfortunately not new nor limited to India, but it is the intensity in which the attacks have taken place in the last decade is something to be concerned about.
Gauri Lankesh was shot dead on the night of September 5, 2017, from close range near her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru.
According to the statement, the documentary film Gauri has been commissioned by Free Press Unlimited, Amsterdam.
Free Press Unlimited mission stems from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that says everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, it said.
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Kota, Mar 28: A 19-year-old NEET aspirant allegedly hanged herself at her PG room here, the seventh suicide by a coaching student in the city since the beginning of this year, police said on Thursday.
Somya Kurmi committed suicide by hanging from the ceiling fan late Wednesday night, DSP Rajesh Tailor told PTI.
A day earlier, another NEET aspirant Mohammad Urooj (20) was found dead at his PG accommodation in Vigyan Nagar.
According to police, when Kurmi did not open her room, her friends broke open the door and found her hanging.
A native of Amethi town in Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow, Kurmi had been preparing for the competitive NEET exam from a coaching institute here for over a year, DSP Tailor said, adding that she had recently shifted to this PG in Mahavir Nagar about a month ago.
A note has been recovered from the student's room but the police were yet to verify its relevance with the suicide, the DSP said.
During investigation, police found that earlier this week, the woman had some health complications and was admitted to MBS Hospital. She was discharged after a day of treatment.
After conducting a post-mortem, the body was handed over to the parents after they reached Kota on Thursday noon, Jawahar Nagar SHO Kamlesh Kumar Sharma said.
A case has been registered on the basis of the parents' complaint and further probe is underway, the SHO said while denying that any suicide note was recovered from her room.
This is the seventh case of suicide by a coaching student in Kota since January. In 2023, there were 26 suspected suicide cases of coaching students in Kota.