Ongole: Plea to recognise journalists as corona warriors

Ongole: The government should recognise the journalist fraternity also as corona warriors as they are a step ahead in creating awareness to the people than the departments concerned and have been acting as a bridge between the public and government, demanded the APUWJ state president IV Subbarao.

Following the call given by the IJU and APUWJ, the journalists in Prakasam district organised a protest and rally on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanthi.

They started from the CVN Reading room as a rally, to the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Gandhi road and paid tributes to the Father of the Nation. Later, they submitted a memorandum of demands to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi and prayed to him to enlighten the heads in government to declare journalists also Covid warriors.

In the programme presided over by the district APUWJ secretary Dasari Kanakaiah, IV Subbarao said that 38 journalists had lost their lives on the duty reporting on the Coronavirus, but the government is failed to recognize the services of the journalists.

He demanded that the government announce Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia to the kin of the deceased journalists and Rs 25,000 as immediate help to the journalists who suffered from the coronavirus.

The journalists' leaders Konuri Srinivas, Alugula Suresh, Firoz, Janardhan, Srinivas and others also participated in the programme.