Khabar Lahariya

Khabar Lahariya is India's only women-run brand of ethical and independent rural news. Today, it reaches 5 million people every month through multiple digital platforms. It has a network of 25 women reporters across 16 districts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, who run a hyperlocal, video-first news channel, broadcasting news primarily to audiences in remote areas of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh with more than 150 million views, & 540,000 + YouTube subscribers.

Khabar Lahariya
TypeDigital Brodcasting Media
FormatBrodcasting
Founder(s)Kavita Bundelkhandi, Meera Jatav, Shalini Joshi, Disha Mullick
Editor-in-chiefKavita Devi
Founded30 May 2002 in Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh, India
LanguageMultiple editions in Hindustani dialects such as Bundeli, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Bajjikka, English etc
HeadquartersNew Delhi
Websitewww.khabarlahariya.org

It was launched in 2002 by Nirantar Trust, a New Delhi-based NGO, and co-founded by Meera Jataw, Shalini Joshi, and Kavita Bundelkhandi. Kavita is the current editor-in-chief of Khabar Lahariya. Initially, it started with a staff of seven women, who wrote and produced a fortnightly newspaper in Bundeli and Hindi languages. The publication covered everything from local to global news, all reported from a feminist perspective.

With its roots in Bundelkhand, we are now working to expand the brand Khabar Lahariya, which has been working to bring women into media for 20 years in different districts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar.


Impact

As an independent rural media house, Khabar Lahariya’s biggest impact has been to establish a cadre of full-time women reporters from marginalized communities in areas that still see no women reporters. As a local media house that supports rigorous, verified rural reporting, in the district, state, and beyond, Khabar Lahariya is known to produce trusted news, particularly in the context of a push towards quicker, easier, opinion-based media production, or even well-intentioned, progressive journalism, that sends (still usually male, upper caste) reporters from urban centres to cover rural news. Khabar Lahariya’s stories have had an impact at various levels: from bringing district-level officials up to speed with the non-implementation of schemes in remote villages; to the initiation of an investigation into these issues; to actual tangible change on the ground. Khabar Lahariya also believes in diverse definitions of impact. Telling the story of a violence survivor who may or may not be able to obtain justice; or of a victim of dowry murder are examples of what the role that independent, feminist media can play. We bring stories that need to be told, from diverse perspectives, into the public domain. Khabar Lahariya strongly believes that the ability of independent media from rural areas to exist and survive is impactful in and of itself.


Digital Operations

Khabar Lahariya went completely digital in 2015, housed by Chambal Media, a digital media social enterprise founded by Disha Mullick and Shalini Joshi. Chambal Media was founded in 2015, with the mission to bring into the digital revolution in India the perspectives and involvement of women on the margins. Besides producing media products, it trains and mentors rural women as researchers and content creators in remote rural districts, most of whom become part of our revolutionary network of new media professionals.

Subscription Products

In 2019, Khabar Lahariya launched its first subscription product - Sound, Fury, and 4G (SF4G) with exclusive and in-depth investigative reports in English.

In November 2021, a revamped and all-new avatar of a subscription product, KL Hatke, was launched with more diverse premium content offerings for Khabar Lahariya's growing national and international English-speaking audience.

Awards and recognition

In 2004, the collective of women journalists bringing out Khabar Lahariya was awarded the prestigious Chameli Devi Jain Award for Women in Journalism. In 2009, the newspaper was awarded the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize.[1] Following this, plans to expand the newspaper were made.[2] In 2012, the newspaper went on to win the Laadli Media Award for gender sensitive reporting. Also, in the same year Indian news channel Times Now awarded Khabar Lahariya the Amazing Indian Award. In 2013 the newspaper was presented the Kaifi Azmi Award in memory of poet Kaifi Azmi. The award is presented by the All India Kaifi Azmi Academy every year on his death anniversary.[3]

In 2014, German media channel Deutsche Welle awarded the prestigious Global Media Forum Award to the newspaper's website at the Best of Blogs annual conference held in Bonn in Germany.[4][5]

In 2021, Khabar Lahariya was honored with the International Women's Media Foundation's (IWMF), Courage in Journalism Award for bringing a feminist voice to local media, interrogating and disrupting the status quo.

References
  1. "Newspaper by rural Indian women wins UN literacy award". The Hindu. 4 August 2009. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
  2. "After UN award, rural Indian women's weekly has expansion plans". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 18 September 2012.
  3. "Kaifi Azmi's 11th death anniversary".
  4. "Waves of news sweep the Indian countryside". DW.com. 30 June 2014.
  5. "Khabar Lahariya - a weekly paper run by women journalists wins German Award". THe News Minute. 10 July 2014.
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