Shashikant Warishe, 48, was run in Ratnagiri in broad daylight on 7 February 2023.
Photo sourced from news websites
Journalist associations have condemned the murder of a Maharashtra journalist who was allegedly targeted for exposing land acquisition issues in a series of reports.
Shashikant Warishe, 48, was run over at a petrol pump in Ratnagiri in broad daylight on 7 February 2023, allegedly by an SUV driven by Pandharinath Amberkar, a real estate dealer who was featured in an article on land acquisition. Warishe was murdered a day after he wrote an article on a controversial refinery project in Konkan, media reports said. Amberkar has been arrested and charged with murder.
The Press Club of India, Press Association and the Delhi Union of Journalists, while condemning the crime, demanded a high-level probe by a sitting high court judge or a retired Supreme Court Judge into the incident. They said the Maharashtra government should announce suitable ex-gratia to the journalist’s family and ensure protection to his family members and witnesses.
Media reports said Amberkar is a supporter of the Ratnagiri refinery and petrochemical project that Shashikant Warishe had written about in a series of articles in Marathi newspapers. His stories on the refinery project found support from local residents, who were opposed to the project and land acquisition, the press associations said.
Warishe used to reside with his mother and 19-year-old son in Kasheli village, which is 24 km from Barsu village, where the project is proposed to come up, The Indian Express reported. The Ratnagiri Refinery & Petrochemicals, promoted by three major public sector oil companies – Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum – was originally planned in Nanar village of Ratnagiri, The Indian Express reported.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
