Covering Deprivation

Getting away from ivory-tower syndrome.
Covering Deprivation is a required course for students
of both streams. (Top) Professor Nalini Rajan and
a student talk to a women in a village during their
week-long mandatory field trip. Development
journalist P. Sainath who has years of experience
covering deprivation in the print medium is a regular
visiting lecturer at the ACJ.

During this term, all students take a required course­ — the only one of its kind taught by a journalism school anywhere in the world — Covering Deprivation.
“Deprivation” refers to the inability of individuals in a society to achieve basic human functionings. Among these are the ability to live a long and healthy life free from avoidable disease and hunger,
and the opportunity to be educated and to have access to resources needed for a socially acceptable standard of living. Some forms of deprivation may apply to all, or to the majority of, the members of specific social groups (such as Dalits) or classes (such as landless agricultural labourers).
Although deprivation so defined is a huge part of contemporary Indian reality both in the countryside
and in cities, the mainstream media do not generally give it informed, sustained coverage.
The course gives equal importance to (a) understanding deprivation and (b) covering it. Through lectures, discussions and field trips, students are taught to discern and report the facts and many
facets of deprivation — in context and steering clear of exotic filters. They learn to analyse the socio-economic, political, environmental and other factors that produce deprivation and to present their observations of it accurately, sensitively and in a way that will engage the attention of the public.
The course culminates in an extended field trip, following which students present their findings in The Word, as television and radio features, or in www.digantik.com depending on their stream.

The  course is coordinated by Professors Nalini Rajan and Mahalakshmi Jayaram of the ACJ.

The adjunct faculty for the course includes:
Dr K. Nagaraj, Professor of Economics, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai; P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu and author of Everybody Loves A Good Drought;
and Dr Michael Tharakan, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram .