THE NAVHIND CRIMES -- THE DEVASHRI TRAGEDY -- LETTER TO PALLAVI DEMPO

Dear Pallavi Dempo,
As one of the directors of M/s Navhind Publications Pvt Ltd we thought we should tell you that the five labourers died after a compound wall of Devashri constructions (you ought to know by now that the firm is run by your husband Shri Srinivas Dempo who also runs the Navhind Group) Porvorim, fell on them as they slept.
And they died ma’am. Its not as if five of your eye lashes got weighed down under an unusually heavy streak of mascara and fell off. Five wage earners died.
Now the logic may be wasted on you. The death in a daily wage labourers’ home varies from a death of a patriarch in a conglomerate. There is no celebration of death. There is no will. The only heirlooms passed in most likelihood will be a mud-streaked vest, a pair of street-side underwear, a pouch of gutka, a few children and a few thousand rupees, if they are lucky. With the husband gone, the wife and kids are rarely staked out in whatever small landing holding they may have back home by her in-laws.
You did wrong by editing the name of Devashri out of the reports published in The Navhind Times. You did wrong by slipping these four deaths under a silly Page 1 lead story about computerization of ration cards (with that weird crocodile logo). A story which other newspapers had reported months ago.
People have died ma’am on your hands (your conglomerate) ma’am. While Devashri constructions gave them a hasty grave and The Navhind Times carved them a very poor tombstone.
Did you notice ma’am, that your newspaper did not even mention that it was the Devashri wall that did the labourers in. Your paper did not name the company? It surely wasn’t because they did not know which firm it was that did the poor sods in? It wasn’t carried precisely because they knew.
Jog your memory to a few weeks ago ma’am.
Remember that lead story your newspaper had carried about nudity in a newspaper (like Devashri you did not name the newspaper, but unlike Devashri, you did leave several clues to let your readers know that its Times of India, you were talking about) and you mentioned about how carrying such pictures was not moral? How moral is your hiding facts in this case? Your newspaper has suppressed critical information about the company because of whose carelessness five people have died.
As a media critiquing blog, the occasions when we get ourselves to thanks The Times of India are rare. This is one time when we will. Its good to have someone who can match up to the clout your newspaper and others Goan newspapers have been using as a condom to cap the news that isn’t of your interest.
We are glad now that there exists an organization as powerful as the one you own that names you when you do wrong. We also hope that you will return the compliment later. It felt nice to see that in this case, Herald and the Gomantak Times had enough pluck to state what happened. We need to navel-gaze ma’am. The media in Goa really needs to navel-gaze. There is too much dirty linen in the Goan media (not surprising since a lot of newspapers are money laundering units) that needs to be washed in public.
Readers ma’am, really do not want to know if your daughter received a consolation prize in some competition, but if someone has died, they’d surely want to know how.
PENPRICKS