Press Statement

India : Sakal Group pulls down shutters of Sakal Times and Gomantak Times

29 May, 2020

The National Union of Journalists (India), strongly condemns the closure of Sakal Tiems and Gomantak Times under the pretext of COVID19 pandemic. Nearly 45 of the editorial staff from both the  papers will be laid off, along with a lot of employees from marketing and other departments . The  above two papers were sharing a lot of resources with their respective Marathi counterparts, Daily Sakal and Daily Gomantak. The employees were taking a reduced salary since March 2020 when the lockdown started. NUJ(India) has sought immediate intervention of the Government of India and State Government to put an halt on the ongoing large-scale retrenchment of working journalists and closure of media  establishments.

NUJ(I) President Ras Bihari said in statement that amid lockdown  the wake of the Covid-19,  journalists are  loosing  l jobs and  facing serious financial crisis due to closure  of Newspapers. Lockdown that is going to enter in to it’s fifth phase has badly affected the media sector. All these issues will  be discussed    in the scheduled webinar Executive Committee Meeting of the NUJ(I) to be held on May 30,2020 and a road map will be finanlised to face this critical situation,said Ras Bihari.

According to Prasanna Mohanty, NUJ(I) Secretary General, Media sector is facing a though time. As per the information HT Media, the publisher of Hindustan Times, Mint and Hindustan, has laid off over 100 staff in order to optimise its expenses due to the impact of  Covid-19  and the lockdown has severely affected  it’s printing  businesses. But the report gives the different picture about Goa and Maharashtra . All these issues will be thoroughly discussed in the Executive body meeting along with  other important point relating to media and organization, he said.

Written By

National Union of Journalists (India) National Union of Journalists (India)

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