SACKED NEWSREADERS
TO SUE DD FOR 'GENDER BIAS'

Doordarshan’s newsreaders who were “sacked” by Prasar Bharati CEO, SS Gill, some time ago, have decided to take their battle against Doordarshan to court.

Kaveri Mukherjee, who was among the six primetime women newsreaders to be “sacked without any explanation,” recently announced that she had decided to take her battle against “gender discrimination” to court.

Kaveri Mukherjee along with Salma Sultan, Geetanjali Aiyer, Meenu Talwar, Usha Albuquerque and Manjari Joshi had been removed from the panel of Doordarshan’s newsreaders for the primetime slot soon after SS Gill took over as the CEO of Prasar Bharati on December 1, 1997. Kaveri Mukherjee, at a press conference, said, “Repeated requests for an explanation fell on deaf ears. None of us has yet been given a reason for being dropped from the panel of newsreaders. All we know for sure is that Salma Sultan, who unlike most of us, is a staffer was dismissed by Gill with a humiliating “Hum aapke chehre se oob gaye hain” when she sought an explanation.

Kaveri Mukherjee is also disturbed by the fact that some of their male counterparts on primetime have not been meted out the same treatment despite advancing age. Tejeshwar Singh, she said, has been around for over 25 years, yet has been allowed to stay. “If age is a criterion, it should apply to all irrespective of sex,” she said.

When asked about the service conditions, she said, “A clause in our contract bars us from doing anything similar for other channels. Subsequently, DD also barred us from appearing on other channels.”

Shyamala Pappu, the counsel for Kaveri Mukherjee said, “Such a clause restricting a person from appearing on other channels means that DD has a monopoly on that individual. This is not casual employment. And there already is a court verdict that says so.” Prasar Bharati, in a written clarification faxed to seven officials, has said that allegations of arbitration and gender bias were baseless and malicious. The message says, “Doordarshan has had a total of 71 news readers on its panel as casual assignees: a number far in excess of the requirement. Only 3 newsreaders are on DD’s staff and the rest are mere ‘casuals’, which in effect, means they have neither right nor claim to regular assignments. Quite a few of them didn't measure up to the job, and had made their entry into the panel for reasons other than professional.”

With the advent of Prasar Bharati, it was decided that Doordarshan’s news casts should be packaged differently with added visuals and reporter-based stories. This, in fact, meant that Doordarshan required not news readers but anchor-persons. It also meant that new formats demanded just one anchor person, not two. This automatically brought down the requirement by 50 per cent for primetime newscasts.

The letter continued, “It is unfortunate that baseless charges of gender bias are being thrown at DD at a time when long overdue changes are being carried out in the format, approach, content and presentation of newscasts. In our effort to improve our newscasts, some news readers had to be laid off. This included both men and women. One fact that has been conveniently overlooked is that two of the three part time anchor-persons in Hindi who had been re-inducted are women.

Out of the current panel of nine news anchor-persons in Hindi, four are women. Similarly four out of eight anchor-persons for prime time English newscasts are women. This clearly shows that there is no gender bias. The two staff members, who had to be laid off, have been given other options such as reporting assignments and non-primetime newscasts. Their response is still awaited.”

When asked to comment on the clarification issued by Prasar Bharti, Umesh Joshi, who is among the sacked newsreaders, said, “This is totally misleading and false. Prasar Bharati is functioning like a shop. They are looking for glamour at a time when not so glamorous faces have made their mark even in films, where glamour means a lot more.”

Umesh Joshi, who is also a senior journalist with Jansatta, says that he is the only Hindi newsreader with a journalistic background, but Prasar Bharti preferred to ignore him. Says he, “Gill claims that DD requires anchor persons and news readers. But where are the anchor persons? Do they really know what anchor persons are?” He also denies that he has received any offer from Prasar Bharati.