After a Harsh Year, Hopeful Signs of Spring Abound
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A JOURNAL OF THE PRESS INSTITUTE OF INDIA ISSN 0042-5303 July-September 2020 Volume 12 Issue 3 Rs 60 After a harsh year, hopeful signs of spring abound It is a matter of pride that India has emerged among the largest producers of vaccines, thanks to Indian scientists, research CONTENTS institutes and manufacturers. Now we are filled with hope for a • The trauma of being a migrant vaccine against COVID-19 and to reclaim our lives once more, worker in these difficult times / says Sudha Umashanker Rakhi Ghosh • When online classes for children ver since COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease) visited us, our lives have can hang in an air of uncertainty / Lopa Shah undergone a sea change – from wearing masks and social distancing • Media watch in the time to being locked down, managing with little or no domestic help to of a pandemic / E Sakuntala Narasimhan working from home and going online for everything, from grocery shop- ping to upskilling to infotainment and what-have-you. The one develop- • It is also about the environment and the economy / ment that every citizen is looking forward to keenly is the rolling out of a S. Gopikrishna Warrier vaccine, our only hope for the old normal to return. • Taking baby steps towards a Fortunately, we are better placed than countries like the US in some ways gender-equal tomorrow / Janani Murali because we have a proper immunisation schedule (there is a view that the • Marriageable age: Law reform BCG and other vaccines have somewhat protected us) and there are no proposals are just not enough / major pockets of resistance like the ones that led to an outbreak of measles Rakhee Roytalukdar in the Big Apple over a year ago . • Batting for women and raising the voice against liquor / What was vaccination like in India in the very nascent stages? Small pox Bharat Dogra was prevalent since ancient times and vaccination reached India in 1802 • Journalist, social reformer, during the time of the British. Anna Dusthall, a three-year-old in Bombay, a crusader for Odia pride / was the first to receive the shot that year. From there on, the vaccine was Mrinal Chatterjee • Turning death into a circus / sent to other parts of the country through human vaccinees. Prior to vac- Shoma A. Chatterji cination, variolation (which is inoculation with small pox virus material • OTT platforms and the new from a patient) was what was in vogue for small pox. dynamics in watching cinema / And like with all great discoveries there was a trigger – which in this Manjira Majumdar • Embracing diversity and letting instance was an English farmer called Benjamin Jesty noticing around 1774 passion for art do the talking / that milkmaids who contracted cowpox from handling the udders of cows V. Ramnarayan were immune to future small pox infections. This was well known in the • Time we made match-fixing a dairy farming areas in England (Jesty later tested this on his wife and two ‘criminal offence’ / Partab Ramchand children). Roughly 20 long years after, Edward Jenner, who discovered the • Remembering Olivia de Havilland small pox vaccine, took this to its logical conclusion in 1796. Jenner is thus / Everton Weekes / Balbir Singh regarded as the father of vaccinology. / Baidyanath Basak / Basu Chatterjee / Saroj Khan / Rishi (Continued on page 3) Kapoor / Irrfan Khan July-September 2020 VIDURA 1 FROM THE EDITOR Courageous and responsible reporting in the time of a pandemic e are in the midst of very are reports of domestic violence public when in the same physical difficult times. The battle cases having increased two-fold space, knowledge of the equipment Wagainst the coronavirus and many women are unable to go and tools to protect reporters and continues and there is no victory in out or report to the police about the interviewees, and the right hygiene sight. Sometimes, you learn about a violence and abuses due to the lock- protocols to adopt. The course on friend or someone you know suc- down. As Janani Murali mentions in verification will give journalists a cumbing to the dreaded disease her article, in the real world, across thorough understanding of how to and you realise that it can often be different social and economic strata, identify false and misleading data a losing battle. The challenges for women continue to face restric- using open-source tools and how reporters, photographers and edi- tions, some of which have been nor- to critically analyse information to tors are now immense – unprec- malised to the extent that we don’t offer balanced coverage and com- edented in recent memory. One even recognise them as restrictions. bat the spread of fake news. Jour- of the challenges is to report accu- Like Rakhee Roytalukdar wonders: nalists would also do well to read rately and safely. Helping readers How can girls be protected against New York-based First Draft’s study understand the crisis better with early marriage? Will changes in the and tools on health misinformation. words and pictures is not an easy law help? Will the strict implemen- Also to avoid words and phrases task, especially when people are tation of the letter of the law produce such as ‘no end in sight’, ‘turmoil’ now seized of the crisis and are desired results? Nothing has so far. ‘killer’, ‘catastrophe’, etc. Such afraid of what lies ahead. However, words could lead to panic among there is no doubt that people are ******************** readers. What we need is balanced better off with good, clear and hon- reporting that provides a sense est reporting. To try and help journalists at a time of calm. The Reuters Institute has And that is what many journal- like this, the Thomson Foundation produced a factsheet that journal- ists have tried to do, braving the has teamed up with a range of spe- ists will find helpful while wading exceptional odds. Indeed, without cialist partners to produce a series through the landscape of COVID- such courage, how would we have of free, online courses on its Jour- 19 misinformation. known (and seen), for example, nalism Now platform. The courses Overall, as a WAN-IFRA report about migrant workers from Andhra cover safety while reporting a story; says, news outlets have displayed Pradesh heading back home on foot verification of facts, and content diversity and creativity while cov- and by cycle to Jharkhand? Like the production. The interactive courses ering the pandemic. Coverage has story by Rakhi Ghosh here, which have been created with assistance included visits to hospitals to show highlights the lack of money, fear of from Free Press Unlimited (Nether- the harsh conditions that health COVID-19, and the desire to meet lands), Ethical Journalism Network, care professionals work under, loved ones that led the workers to International Federation of Journal- some useful infographics that take the drastic step. Some of their ists, First Draft and the Dart Centre depict the scale and the speed of cycles needed repairs, but again, Europe. the spread of the virus, and data no one would touch them, fearing A journalist’s first instinct is to get journalism employed to depict the infection. There was no option but to the scene quickly, but now with spread of the outbreak. And, mind to continue on foot, in the blazing the coronavirus, there is a huge risk. you, many of editors and journal- heat. A woman is forced to deliver The courses give practical advice on ists are working from home, which her baby by the roadside. How assessing the risks so journalists are makes the end results even more would we have known about the better prepared to go on assignments. satisfying. lockdown making it even more dif- Advice includes an awareness of the ficult for women and children – of rapidly-changing global environ- Sashi Nair having to fight battles of another ment and restrictions on movement, [email protected] kind, of domestic violence and techniques to ensure safe communi- abuse within households? There cation with sources and the general 2 VIDURA July-September 2020 (Continued from page 1) When small pox vaccination came to India it was not as if it was embraced with open arms. There was a small fee to be paid by those being vaccinated. The tikaadaars who were carrying out variolation opposed the effort as they feared that they would be out of work. There was the belief that small pox was the result of the wrath of female goddesses like Mariamma and Sithala Devi and, therefore, inter- vening in this through vaccination was literally sacrilege. Many Hindus protested because the vaccine came from the cow (lymph collected from the cows after vaccinating them with cow pox matter). Edward Clive, Governor of Madras who held office until 1803 was a great votary of vaccination Photos: SU and in this he was helped greatly by A plaque of Sawmy Naick at Chintadiripet in Chennai. On right, Dr Haffkine. a W.S. Sawmy Naick, also referred to as Dr Woodayagiri Singadivak- persuasion was needed for the requested that he be allowed to con- kam Samy Nayak, who lived in natives to accept vaccination and duct a cholera vaccine trial, which Komaleeswaranpet, Chennai. Francis Whyte Ellis, collector of was successful. He then went on to Sawmy Naick was appointed by Madras and a great scholar in develop the plague vaccine as well, Edward Clive as native superin- Tamizh and Sanskrit, even com- operating out of a two-room, make tendent of vaccination in 1803 and posed The Legend of Cowpox in shift laboratory facility in Grant served in that department until Tamizh (later translated into Eng- Medical College Bombay.