Geneva/Guwahati, 1 June 2021: Press Emblem Campaign, the Switzerland
based international media rights and safety body, appreciates the
initiative of Indian federal government along with many province
authorities for sanctioning financial assistances to the families of
Covid-19 victims among journalists. As India continues to be a worst
affected country with the highest number of scribes died of novel
corona virus infection aggravated aliments, PEC
(https://pressemblem.ch/) also recommends for early vaccination to
journalists along with other media workers.
Mentionable is that the Union government in New Delhi recently
announced that ₹ 5 hundred thousand (72 Indian rupees= 1 USD) each
would be offered to 67 families of journalists, who died because of
Covid-19 since March 2020. Expressing grieves over the demise of
scribes in the pandemic, the federal information & broadcasting
ministry approved the financial assistances to the affected families.
Many State governments also declared compensations to deceased
journo-families because to Covid-19, where the Uttar Pradesh offers
the highest ( ₹10 lakh each).
PEC, while condoling the demise of over 1440 journalists around the
world due to Covid-19 till date, urges all the governments to
vaccinate the journalists on a priority basis and offer aid to the
victim families so that they can play their roles as frontline corona
warriors after the doctors, nurses, other health and sanitation
workers, said PEC general secretary Blaise Lempen adding that safety
of media workers remains at risk in this crisis because they have to
continue working on the ground.
According to PEC statistics, India remains at the top of the list of
76 corona affected countries, with 229 journo-casualties, followed by
Brazil (222 dead), Peru (161), Mexico (111), Colombia (64), Italy
(56), Bangladesh (53), Ecuador (50), USA (49), Iran (32), United
Kingdom (30), Argentina (28), Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Turkey (27
each), Russia (21), Venezuela (19), Bolivia (18), Panama (16), Spain,
Ukraine (15 each), Egypt, Nepal (14 each), Honduras (11), Afghanistan,
Nigeria, South Africa, France (9 each), etc.
“In May, at least 90 journalists succumbed to the virus infection in
India, that is 3 per day. For the whole world, more than 180
journalists passed away due to Covid-19 in the month of May, that is 6
per day, a record number,” said Nava Thakuria, the country
representative of PEC, adding that India lately lost journalists
Sagolsem Hemant, Basant Das, Sushil Sharma, R Jawahar, Junagari
Ramesh, Prabudha Jagadev, Suresh Kumar Chaturvedi, HS Doreswamy,
Vidyut P Mourya, Pradeep Kumar, Roshan Dias, Rajkumar Keswani,
Choppadandi Mohan, Prakash Biyani, L Ramesh, Shivani Dua, etc.
