Dubai: The 7th episode of Subalterns by Village TV Trust, Mangaluru and St. Loyola College, Bengaluru was held on Friday October 29 at 4.30 pm IST.
With the objective of ‘P2P – Local to Global’, the show is aimed at providing a platform for unheard young voices of the society and thus create a supportive environment.
The programme host was Spearhead Media Group Mentor and Advisor CA Valerian Dalmaida, and the Co-host was Kiran Nirkan. The weekly programme is in Kannada.
In the beginning of the programme host Kiran Nirkan explaining the motto of starting ‘Subalterns’ said, “the new series has been started with an intention to provide a voice to the voiceless people, who belong to the marginalised communities of the society. As a part of the decennial celebrations of NewsKarnataka, we have undertaken this initiative.”
Speaking further he welcomed all the participants of the talk show series.
Bala Pushpa, and Prajwal Kumar D. were the participants and the special guests. Bala Pushpa is the daughter of Anand Kumar and Sagaya Mary. Her father is a garments helper. Prajwal is the son of Diwakar S. and Sudha. His mother is a garments worker and father works as a security guard.
Diwakar said that, “we belong to Mandya and came to Bengaluru in 1995. I am working as a security guard since 25 years, and my wife works in a garments factory. My son Prajwal also works as a pamphlet distributor in the morning. I have worked as a security guard in many MNCs but it is not enough to live our daily lives comfortably. Price rise has troubled us a lot.”
“During pandemic we suffered a lot . The government gave us the ration but we didn’t have money. We thought of going back to our native but for the sake of our son’s education we stayed back in Bengaluru. We do not have security for our lives,” he added.
Diwakar’s son said, ”my aim is to do Master’s in Commerce and engage in stock market. I will take care of our family.”
Rajesh said ”we can’t depend on the salary, and that they should start small business like catering, tea stall etc. And government also should give GST exemption for these people which will help them.”
Meanwhile Valerian Dalmaida enquired about the lifestyle of these people and also about the burden in them due to GST. And also asked about the interference of the agents. He also spoke about outsourcing by the company that will all likely snatch the wages of laboures. He criticised the government for exploiting the labourers.
Kiran said, ”during lockdown people are dying of hunger but our so-called ministers are busy giving irresponsible statement, which is really a great irony of our system.”
Dr. Kumaraswamy Bijjihalli, Head of the Kannada Department in Loyola College, Bengaluru said that Subalterns is a wonderful programme. Loyola College has many students who belong to such marginalised families. Our college gives admissions to the students of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, Ahinda and all the marginalised communities. We are very happy that NewsKarnataka has come forward and given a platform to express their woes.
He also said, “government has been ignoring the downtrodden people. They only want power and position. There are no any numerical structure regarding employment exchange.”
