On the joyous occasion of Vartha Bharati stepping into its 19th year...
SPECIAL EDITORIAL
Today, your Vartha Bharati is entering the 19th year of its journey, of which, every step was unforgettable. Our heartfelt congratulations to every member of our 200-strong team who made this feat possible, by facing the most adverse and testing situations, sometimes nervously and most often with great courage. Similarly, our heartfelt thanks to all the supporters of Vartha Bharati who have constantly encouraged us and stood with us throughout our adventurous journey. In addition, our most humble salutations to our critics who meticulously scrutinise each move of ours, and by repeatedly haunting, taunting, abusing, accusing, defaming, intimidating, reviling and humiliating us, provided us fresh impetus everyday and helped us keep our spirit always high.
We started a campaign this August. We decided to seek the help of our readers and well wishers spread across the state, country and overseas to put an end to our financial woes. It was our innocent estimation that if we could get 10,000 subscribers to pay Rs 5,000 each as annual subscription for our online edition, it would help us breathe easy at least for some time. We announced this and published repeated reminders. As a result we were able to get 68 subscribers during the past 28 days. We are grateful to each of these 68 paid subscribers. At this rate, it would take only 12 long years for us to reach our target of getting 10,000 paid subscribers.
For us at Vartha Bharati , this is the moment to do some serious introspection on issues related to our existence. At the same time, this might be the right occasion for all our readers, well wishers and supporters to loudly discuss the situation with each other over next few days. We insist on this discussion to be aloud because otherwise, there is a possibility of each one of them assuming that his or her contribution would not matter, as all others might have already made their payment !
As we celebrate our ability to have somehow survived all these years, we hope our readers would bear with us sharing some of our hopes and disillusions.
We have not yet given up our dream of running this newspaper fully based on subscriptions and totally free from advertisements. That in fact would require a few thousand committed readers regularly buying the newspaper, paying Rs 20 per copy everyday. Although we have been presenting this ideal before the huge community of our esteemed readers, the response so far has not been very encouraging. When we launched our online editions some time ago, we had our share of apprehensions. It was a pleasant surprise, however, to see our online edition, YouTube News channel, Facebook page, Instagram page and English news bulletin earn so much of popularity within a short span of time. Today, various online Avatars of Vartha Bharati are ahead of most of the well known online news sources in Kannada.
Compared to the size of the readership of our print edition, the number of readers, viewers and listeners of our online productions has increased manifold. The new community has developed an emotional bonding with this Media house. If even a chunk of them develop the revolutionary culture of paying a small annual subscription, it would ease our task to a great extent. As most of our readers have not yet come forward to become paid subscribers, we are left with no choice but to depend on the advertisement revenue. Yet, we firmly stand by our resolve to accept only unconditional advertisements. This indeed has pitched us against a bunch of tough challenges. Many industrialists, leaders, officers, priests and political parties have tried in vain to use Vartha Bharati as their embouchure and even turned vengeful on failing time and again to do so. However, we never used their ire and the consequent obstructions as an excuse to compromise any of our core principles or commitments
It is time, for the mature and sensitive consumers who understand the crucial role of independent, objective and fearless Media to appreciate the critical nature of the situation. They should come forward to actively support not only Vartha Bharati but all those similarly committed and honest Media houses in all the languages that are being regularly targeted and challenged by the establishment, the corrupt bureaucracy, wicked politicians and communal outfits. Mere lip service will serve no purpose at all. The consumers must come forward to share the burden of the media houses that they admire. Otherwise, through their inaction, the well-meaning would passively be collaborating with the evil forces, hell bent upon crushing the Media houses that have always stoutly refused to deviate from the right path.
A.S.Puthige
Editor in Chief
On Behalf of Team VB
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Trouble ‘Miyas’ everywhere only then they will leave Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma
Says “Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP are openly against them, we are saying it openly
New Delhi: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that four to five lakh “Miya voters” would be removed from the electoral rolls in the state once the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists is carried out. He also made a series of controversial remarks openly targeting the Miya community, a term commonly used in Assam in a derogatory sense to refer to Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an official programme in Digboi in Tinsukia district, Sarma said it was his responsibility to create difficulties for the Miya community and claimed that both he and the BJP were “directly against Miyas”.
“Four to five lakh Miya votes will have to be deleted in Assam when the SIR happens,” Sarma said, adding that such voters “should ideally not be allowed to vote in Assam, but in Bangladesh”. He asserted that the government was ensuring that they would not be able to vote in the state.
The chief minister was responding to questions about notices issued to thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims during the claims and objections phase of the ongoing Special Revision (SR) of electoral rolls in Assam. While the Election Commission is conducting SIR exercises in 12 states and Union Territories, Assam is currently undergoing an SR, which is usually meant for routine updates.
Calling the current SR “preliminary”, Sarma said that a full-fledged SIR in Assam would lead to large-scale deletion of Miya voters. He said he was unconcerned about criticism from opposition parties over the issue.
“Let the Congress abuse me as much as they want. My job is to make the Miya people suffer,” Sarma said. He claimed that complaints filed against members of the community were done on his instructions and that he had encouraged BJP workers to keep filing complaints.
“I have told people wherever possible they should fill Form 7 so that they have to run around a little and are troubled,” he said, adding that such actions were meant to send a message that “the Assamese people are still living”.
In remarks that drew further outrage, Sarma urged people to trouble members of the Miya community in everyday life, claiming that “only if they face troubles will they leave Assam”. He also accused the media of sympathising with the community and warned journalists against such coverage.
“So you all should also trouble, and you should not do news that sympathise with them. There will be love jihad in your own house.” He said.
The comments triggered reactions from opposition leaders. Raijor Dal president and MLA Akhil Gogoi said the people of Assam had not elected Sarma to keep one community under constant pressure. Congress leader Aman Wadud accused the chief minister of rendering the Constitution meaningless in the state, saying his remarks showed a complete disregard for constitutional values.
According to the draft electoral rolls published on December 27, Assam currently has 2.51 crore voters. Election officials said 4.78 lakh names were marked as deceased, 5.23 lakh as having shifted, and 53,619 duplicate entries were removed during the revision process. Authorities also claimed that verification had been completed for over 61 lakh households.
On January 25, six opposition parties the Congress, Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(M-L) submitted a memorandum to the state’s chief electoral officer. They alleged widespread legal violations, political interference and selective targeting of genuine voters during the SR exercise, describing it as arbitrary, unlawful and unconstitutional.
