Sameeksha Trust | SabrangIndia News Related to Human Rights Wed, 16 Aug 2017 07:36:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://sabrangindia.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Favicon_0.png Sameeksha Trust | SabrangIndia 32 32 “… Seems like part of a bigger agenda to malign me personally”: former editor, EPW https://sabrangindia.in/seems-part-bigger-agenda-malign-me-personally-former-editor-epw/ Wed, 16 Aug 2017 07:36:28 +0000 http://localhost/sabrangv4/2017/08/16/seems-part-bigger-agenda-malign-me-personally-former-editor-epw/ Paranjoy Guha Thakurta responds to the claims made by some of his former colleagues in their letter to the trustees of Sameeksha Trust Reproduced below is the text of the statement issued by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on August 2 I have agonised for days about whether I should put out this statement, ever since the […]

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Paranjoy Guha Thakurta responds to the claims made by some of his former colleagues in their letter to the trustees of Sameeksha Trust

Pranjoy

Reproduced below is the text of the statement issued by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on August 2

I have agonised for days about whether I should put out this statement, ever since the letter dated 25 July, 2017, sent by eight of my former colleagues in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) to the trustees of the Sameeksha Trust, owners and publishers of the EPW, entered the public domain soon after it was sent. This was a letter that was not meant to have reached me. But now that it is circulating widely, I have decided it is time to respond. My silence on the points raised in the letter have been interpreted by some as my tacit acknowledgment of the claims made by some of my former colleagues. This is far from correct.

On the issue of my allegedly undermining the review process in the EPW, I wish to assert that I exercised my prerogative as an editor to shorten the review process in the cases of barely a handful of articles out of the hundreds of articles that were published in the print and web editions of the EPW in the 15 months that I was privileged to serve in this position. I wish to place on record that among this handful of articles was one that was strongly recommended for publication by one of the Trustees of the Sameeksha Trust. After this article was published, it attracted a strong rejoinder which too was published. The same Trustee also wrote an email to me expressing unhappiness at the rejection of a particular article. While it is not normal practice in the EPW to specify the reasons for rejecting an article, in this instance, because a specific complaint had come from a Trustee, I requested the reviewer to specify the reasons for rejecting the article. These reasons were then emailed to the Trustee who retorted with a harangue questioning the decision of the reviewer. I wish to, therefore, categorically deny the claim that I have undermined the review process in the EPW. 

On the claim that I favoured my close associates by promising to pay them substantially more than what the EPW normally pays its contributors, the following facts should be noted. One particular investigative article by Subir Ghosh (my co-author and close associate) on the cartels that were apparently responsible for the spike in the prices of tur and urad dal was published on the website of the EPW. This article was written after more than a month of research based on a perusal of thousands of pages of documents that were leaked to me by a whistleblower. Another article on Kingfisher Airlines by Nihar Gokhale (a freelance journalist who could become my close associate) was published on the EPW website based on leaked internal documents of a bank. I proposed a payment of Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 respectively for the two authors of the two articles which I felt would be commensurate with the efforts they had put in. These were not the typical articles contributed to the EPW for which the authors are paid token amounts. The articles were specially assigned. An important point to note in this context is that the EPW recently received a generous grant from a foundation for its digital edition and one component of this grant was specifically meant for “corporate investigations” and “web exclusives” for which a separate budget has been earmarked. Nevertheless, I had in addition raised a sum of Rs 50,000 from an individual as a donation for corporate investigations. This person subsequently withdrew his donation on learning about my resignation. At this point of time, neither Ghosh nor Gokhale have been paid the amounts I had “promised” them.

On the question of the editor writing signed articles, from the day I joined the EPW as editor on 04 April 2016 till the day I resigned 15 months and 15 days later, eight articles written and/or co-authored by me have been published in the digital and/or print editions of the EPW. I have never been ashamed of the fact that for the forty years I have been a journalist, I have been a reporter for much of the time. Over and above the articles I authored or co-authored,  I had during my tenure as editor been responsible for publishing close to two dozen articles that may be described as “investigative” in nature. I wish to state that not only did these articles attract more than the usual number of readers to the website of the EPW, but also that not a single fact published had to be retracted or were contradicted. My former colleagues refer to an article on alleged over-invoicing of imported coal by prominent private and public companies that I published on the very first day I joined the EPW. That was also the day I received a copy of a document (on which the article was based) that had been sent to 50 different government establishments. I wanted the EPW to be the first to publish the news and indeed, after the EPW published the report, it was picked up by a number of Indian and international dailies and publications.  

It has also been alleged by my former colleagues that I had compromised the “egalitarian” work culture in the EPW. They are indeed entitled to their opinion. I do not agree with them. I believe I did try and accommodate the viewpoints of my former colleagues even when I vehemently disagreed with them. It is up to the larger community of the EPW to evaluate the contribution I made to this reputed publication. 

What has pained me the most is the claim that I have on occasions used inappropriate and sexist/sexual language in office. On only one (repeat one) occasion, did I inadvertently use a phrase in a conversation with a woman colleague that may have been considered inappropriate. On realising this, I immediately apologised to her. Later in the day I followed it up with an email to her placing on record my apology for what I had said. I cannot prove what I have stated as my email account with the EPW has been suddenly blocked. It is important to note that if my way of functioning with my women colleagues in office had on occasions caused them discomfort as is being alleged in the letter to the Trustees, I am not aware if any formal complaint was ever made. That this is being made an issue now seems like it is part of a bigger agenda to malign me personally.

I am taking particular umbrage at the decision to suddenly block what used to be my official email account. This is contrary to the explicit assurance that had been given to me that I would be allowed access  to my EPW email account for a few weeks after my resignation from the post of editor of the EPW on 18 July. I sincerely hope that what is contained in my EPW email account will not be tampered with. I also hope I will still be given an opportunity to access my email account to retrieve what is rightfully my own work. 

I am particularly thankful to my former colleagues for expressing their disagreement with the manner in which the trustees of the Sameeksha Trust directed/instructed/ordered me on 18 July to pull down an article on Adani Power Limited ostensibly because a lawyer representing the company had sent the EPW a letter/notice alleging defamation without having moved a court of law. My former colleagues have rightly perceived this action as an encroachment on editorial autonomy. 

In conclusion, I wish to reiterate that the institution that is the EPW is far bigger than any individual and will always be that way. Its survival and further development, I believe, is the responsibility of the larger EPW community that has sustained and nurtured it. 

Yours faithfully
 sign.jpg
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Gurgaon (Haryana)
 

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EPW Community “appalled” by decisions of Board Members of Sameeksha Trust https://sabrangindia.in/epw-community-appalled-decisions-board-members-sameeksha-trust/ Tue, 25 Jul 2017 06:43:38 +0000 http://localhost/sabrangv4/2017/07/25/epw-community-appalled-decisions-board-members-sameeksha-trust/ Open letter by members of the EPW Community addressed to Sameeksha Trust Image: The Hindu As long-standing well-wishers and members of the intellectual community served by the EPW (Economic & Political Weekly), we are appalled and dismayed by the recent events leading to the abrupt resignation of the Editor, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. We are distressed […]

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Open letter by members of the EPW Community addressed to Sameeksha Trust

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Image: The Hindu

As long-standing well-wishers and members of the intellectual community served by the EPW (Economic & Political Weekly), we are appalled and dismayed by the recent events leading to the abrupt resignation of the Editor, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

We are distressed that the Board of the Sameeksha Trust has insisted that the Editor retract an article published in the journal, and is preparing to introduce new norms for the Board-Editor relationship and appoint a co-editor. It is obvious that, taken together, these actions (mentioned by the Editor in interviews to the press and not denied in the statement issued by the Trust) would force any self-respecting editor to resign. By failing to distinguish between internal issues of procedural propriety in Board-Editor relationship from the much larger question of the EPW’s public reputation for integrity, the Board of the Sameeksha Trust has dealt a strong blow to the journal’s credibility.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s professional reputation has been primarily that of an investigative journalist of several decades standing.  His well-known past exposés have delved into the malpractices of large corporations and the frequent complicity of state institutions in such corrupt practices. That such journalism could provoke retaliation by those investigated may be expected.  These facts must have been known to the Board of Trustees of the Sameeksha Trust when they appointed Guha Thakurta as Editor just 15 months earlier. It is one thing to wonder if the Editor may have erred in initiating legal action on behalf of the Trust without first consulting its Board, and quite another to withdraw an already published article from the journal.

If the Board believes the article to be mistaken in its facts, it must issue a public apology and retraction. If it is only concerned that due deference was not shown to the Board, it must publicly stand by the article.  By forcing the Editor’s resignation without clarifying its stand on the substance of the article, the Board has diminished the institution that it is mandated to nurture.

The fact that a legal notice was sent to the Editor and the publishers (Sameeksha Trust) of EPW, for an ongoing investigation on the tweaking of rules that have benefited the Adani Group, is not surprising. Legal notices have unfortunately become the standard means used to intimidate and suppress investigative journalism. When they translate into court cases that can extend over years, they obviously add to costs and further harassment of honest journalists. However, as long as all the published material can be adequately substantiated and verified, there is little reason to fear an adverse result from the judicial process. But publishers MUST stand behind and back their editors on this if the journals are to maintain their independence and credibility.

India is currently living through a dark period in which there are real concerns about freedom and independence of intellectual expression, both for academics and journalists, with significant corporate takeover of major media houses and increasing instances of overt and covert intimidation of independent thinking and debate.

India is currently living through a dark period in which there are real concerns about freedom and independence of intellectual expression, both for academics and journalists, with significant corporate takeover of major media houses and increasing instances of overt and covert intimidation of independent thinking and debate. In this context, reports of what appears to be a capitulation by the Board of Trustees of Sameeksha Trust –  removing the “offending” article from the EPW website and trying to impose humiliating terms on the Editor – are alarming.

The EPW has a long and distinguished tradition of promoting independent and critical thinking that is vital in a democracy.  We expect the current Trustees to be mindful of our inherited legacy that they hold in trust on behalf of us as scholars, analysts and activists in India and abroad, who have contributed to EPW over long decades.  They need to take immediate steps to restore the prestige and credibility of the journal and the Sameeksha Trust. This letter is therefore also asking the Trust, which is in the nature of a body accountable to a larger public, to create channels of communication between the Trust and the EPW community so as to strengthen the autonomy and integrity of EPW.
 

  1. Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Emeritus Professor, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata
  2. Akeel Bilgrami, Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
  3. Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  4. Mary E. John, Professor, CWDS, New Delhi
  5. Sushil Khanna, Professor, IIM, Kolkata
  6. T. M. Thomas Isaac, Finance Minister, Government of Kerala
  7. Bina Agarwal, Professor, University of Manchester
  8. Ramchandra Guha, Bengaluru
  9. Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University
  10. Noam Chomsky, MIT
  11. C. P.Chandrasekhar, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  12. Sunil Khilnani, Professor, King’s College London
  13. Susie Tharu, Emeritus, English and Foreign Languages University
  14. T. Jayaraman, Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
  15. Sashi Kumar, Chairman, Media Development Foundation, Chennai
  16. R. Ramakumar, Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
  17. Vikas Rawal, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  18. Alicia Puyana Mutis, Flacso, Mexico City
  19. Anis Chowdhury, University of Western Sydney
  20. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Malaysia
  21. Yılmaz Akyüz, Chief Economist, South Centre (Former Director, UNCTAD.)
  22. Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  23. M.V. Ramana, Professor, University of British Columbia, Canada
  24. Geeta Kapur, Art scholar, Delhi
  25. Vivan Sundaram, Artist, Delhi
  26. Chandra Dutt, Director, Centre of Science and Technology For Rural Development, Kerala
  27. Laxmi Murthy, Bangalore
  28. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Professor Emeritus, JNU
  29. Satish Deshpande, Professor, Delhi University
  30. Uma Chakravarti, retired historian, Delhi University
  31. Tejaswini Niranjana, Professor, Lingnan University, Hongkong
  32. V. Geetha, Independent scholar, Chennai.
  33. Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Independent researcher, Bangalore
  34. Nandini Sundar, Professor, University of Delhi.
  35. J Devika, Centre for Development Studies, Kerala
  36. Padmini Swaminathan, retired Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad
  37. Patrick Bond, Professor, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
  38. Prem Chowdhry, Historian
  39. Nivedita Menon, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
  40. Itty Abraham, National University of Singapore
  41. Aditya Nigam, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
  42. R. Nagaraj, IGIDR
  43. Partha Ray, IIM Calcutta
  44. S. Parasuraman, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
  45. Anand Chakravarti, Retired Professor, University of Delhi
  46. Abhijit Sen, Retired Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
  47. Jeemol Unni, University of Ahmedabad
  48. Abhijit Banerjee, Professor, MIT
  49. Himanshu, Associate Professor, JNU
  50. Mritunjoy Mohanty, Professor, IIM, Kolkata
  51. Sunanda Sen, retired Professor, JNU
  52. Praveen Jha, Professor, JNU
  53. Dhruva Narayan, Centre for Social Development
  54. Manoranjan Mohanty, retired Professor, Delhi University
  55. Amita Baviskar, Institute of Economic Growth
  56. N. Krishnaji, retired, Centre for Development Studies
  57. Yılmaz Akyüz, Chief Economist, South Centre (Former Director, UNCTAD.)
  58. Mohammad Konneh,
  59. Paris Yeros, Professor, Federal University, Brazil
  60. Elontero Prada, Professor, Sao Paolo University, Brazil
  61. Meyer Brownstone, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto
  62. Radhika Singha, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  63. Laurence Cox, National University of Ireland and Fondation des Sciences des Hommes Paris
  64. Dia Dacosta, University of Alberta
  65. Seth Sandrowsky, Sacramento, California
  66. Jai Sen, World Social Forum,
  67. Kannan Srinivasan, New York
  68. Pradip Kumar Datta, JNU
  69. Nirmalangshu Mukherji
  70. Avinesh Kumar Gupta, World Forum of Economists
  71. Sudeshna Banerji, Jadavpur University
  72. Kuttappan Vijayachandran, Industrial Research Services
  73. Samuel H Daniel, Independent researcher USA
  74. Radhika Desai, Professor, University College, Manitoba
  75. M. Vijayabaskar, Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies
  76. SK Godwin, SK, IIM Kolkata
  77. Mani Kumar, Independent researcher.
  78. Sudip Chaudhuri, Professor IIM Kolkata
  79. Venkatesh Athreya, Prof (retd) Bharathidasan University
  80. Anamitra Roychowdhury, JNU
  81. Dipa Sinha, B. R. Ambedkar University, Delhi
  82. Kunibert Raffer, Prof (retd), University of Vienna
  83. Rajender Singh Negi
  84. Sumit Mazumdar, Institute of Public Health, Kalyani
  85. Avinash Kumar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
  86. Ashwini Deshpande, Professor, Delhi School of Economics
  87. K. Srivatsan, Anveshi Research Centre Hyderabad
  88. Veena Shatrugna, retired, National Institute of Nutrition Hyderabad
  89. Ashok Chowdhury, All India Union of Forest Working People
  90. Matt Meyer, International Peace Research Association
  91. Aabid Firdausi, Kerala University
  92. A R Vasavi, Independent Reseacher Bangalore
  93. Gopi Kanta Ghosh, Independent researcher.
  94. Radha D’Souza, University of Westminster
  95. E.A.S Sarma, I.A.S. Retd., Hyderabad
  96. Lawrence Shute, Prof Emeritus, California State Polytechnic University
  97. Sumit Sarkar, retired Professor, University of Delhi
  98. Tanika Sarkar, retired Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
  99. Gita Chadha, University of Mumbai
  100. Lata Mani, Bangalore
  101. Anandhi S., MIDS Chennai
  102. K. Ramakrishnan, Chennai
  103. Sunil Mani, Director, CDS Trivandrum
  104. Carol Upadhya, NIAS Bangalore
  105. Sanjay Srivastava, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi
  106. Janaki Abraham, Delhi School of Economics
  107. Oishik Sirkar, Jindal Law University, Sonepat
  108. Balwinder Singh Tiwana, Punjabi University
  109. Mandira Sarma, JNU
  110. Jesim Pais, Society for Social and Economic Research
  111. Rajni Palriwala, University of Delhi
  112. Rama Melkote, retired Professor, Osmania University
  113. Uma M Bhrugabanda, EFLU Hyderabad
  114. Joseph M.T., University of Mumbai
  115. M.S. Bhatt, retired Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia
  116. Malancha Chakrabarty, Associate Fellow Observer Research Foundation
  117. Dr Sakuntala Narasimhan, Independent scholar
  118. Abdi Seido, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Dire Dawa University, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia
  119. Dr. Kushankur Dey, Xavier University Bhubaneswar
  120. Shambhu Ghatak, Associate Fellow, Inclusive Media for Change
  121. Swati Pillai, Watershed Organisation Trust Pune
  122. Pushpendra, Professor Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Patna
  123. Ravi K. Tripathi, Université Pairs XIII – Sorbonne Paris
  124. Mandeep Kaur, Dyal Singh College.
  125. Anis Chowdhury, University of Western Sydney and Co-editor, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy
  126. Venkatesh Athreya, Professor of Economics (Retired), Bharathidasan University
  127. Sunanda Sen, Former Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Universty, New Delhi
  128. Arindam Sen, Editor, Liberation, Kolkata
  129. Nayanjyoti, Research Scholar, Delhi University
  130. Avnesh Kumar Gupta, Hon. Secretary General, World Forum for Economists
  131. Andrew Cornford, Geneva Finance Observatory.
  132. S.V.Narayanan, Independent Analyst
  133. Amar Yumnam, Professor, Manipur University, India.
  134. Rohit Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  135. J.  George, (Rtd) Independent Researcher, DELHI.
  136. Kalyan Shankar Ray, Bhubaneswar
  137. Bindu Oberoi, Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi University
  138. Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda, EFL University
  139. R. Srivatsan,
  140. Abid Firdausi MS, University of Kerala
  141. Navnita Behera, IRIIS
  142. Anupam Mitra
  143. Surajit C Mukhopadhyay, Seacom Skills University
  144. Eleuterio Prado, Professor, São Paulo University, Brazil
  145. Mustafa Ozer, Anadolu University, Turkey
  146. Vishal Sarin, LP University
  147. Shipra Nigam, Research Scholar
  148. Vipin Negi, University of Delhi
  149. Rosa Abraham, Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru
  150. N. Mani, Erode College, Kerala
  151. Hemant Adlakha, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
  152. Collins Mtika, Director – Centre for Investigative Journalism – Malawi
  153. Ranjini Mazumdar, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
  154. Suneetha Achyuta, Coordinator, Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies

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Letter from the Not so Distance Past: Former Editor Ram Reddy’s Letter to EPW https://sabrangindia.in/letter-not-so-distance-past-former-editor-ram-reddys-letter-epw/ Sat, 22 Jul 2017 05:36:59 +0000 http://localhost/sabrangv4/2017/07/22/letter-not-so-distance-past-former-editor-ram-reddys-letter-epw/ The controversy over the resignation of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta as Editor of EPW is only 15 months after C. Rammanohar Reddy left the journal as Editor in less than happy circumstances   Image Courtesy : Outlook The controversy over the resignation of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta as Editor of EPW is only 15 months after C. Rammanohar Reddy […]

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The controversy over the resignation of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta as Editor of EPW is only 15 months after C. Rammanohar Reddy left the journal as Editor in less than happy circumstances

 

Image Courtesy : Outlook

The controversy over the resignation of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta as Editor of EPW is only 15 months after C. Rammanohar Reddy left the journal as Editor in less than happy circumstances. Newsclick believes his letter, written to the Trust on 19th February, 2016 is important for the EPW community. We are carrying this letter and also the letter written by a number of eminent people who considered themselves a part of the EPW community.

9 February 2016
Mumbai
EPW will have a new Editor on 1 April. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, who will take over on that day, will be a fine Editor and he will, I am sure, make EPW even more of a lively and high quality journal than it now is. I look forward to working with Paranjoy on a handover. Once the transition is completed at the end of March, my formal connection with EPW will end.

All of us would like to draw a line and look ahead, a part of the looking ahead must be about how to do things better.

A large number of members of the EPW Community (I think it has to be a capital “C”) had suggested in their letter of 15 February to the Trustees of the Sameeksha Trust, the publishers of EPW, that I should be (a) involved in the search for a new Editor, (b) permitted to carry through the initiatives I had taken to mark the 50 years of publication of EPW, and (c) continue to be involved in a significant manner with EPW in the future. The Trustees did not respond to this request.

There were other letters and statements as well, all of which I too, as an ex-officio trustee, received.

I do not think there has been any reply to any of these letters/statements either.

The request to involve me in the selection of a new Editor is no longer relevant. On the others, I do not want it to be thought I am trying to carve out a role for myself in EPW in the future. I am therefore using this opportunity to let you know that (i) I do not seek any formal position with EPW and (ii) I also do not seek a position with or on the current Board of Trustees of Sameeksha Trust. It therefore follows that I do not wish to (or can) execute the plans that I had made in 2015 to mark 50 years of EPW.

As one of the letters to the Trustees notes, the 50th anniversary is a time to celebrate and also an occasion to think about how we may need to do things differently and for the better.

I would like to briefly touch on some of the questions the EPW Community has posed on one specific aspect: the working of the Sameeksha Trust.

Before that another matter. Many of you have wanted to know the details of the disagreements between some of the Trustees and me. I have spoken about it in broad terms in two press interviews. No purpose is served by writing about it in detail. My correspondence with the Trustees and the minutes of meetings from February 2015 onwards set everything down, both about the 50th anniversary events and my (earlier agreed) post-April 2016 future at EPW. I would like to, however, share with you a brief discussion I had a fortnight ago with a former Trustee.

Cause of Disagreement
Prof. Amit Bhaduri was a trustee of the Sameeksha Trust until last year. (He had wanted to resign from the trusteeship for a few years. One of the reasons for this, he often said, was to make room for younger Trustees.)

Prof. Bhaduri was not aware of all the facts relating to my disagreements with the Trustees. But when I met him, he asked me one question and made one observation, which, in two brief sentences, encapsulate all that happened. The question: “Was the issue about domain control?” Yes it was. The observation: “I had told you many times that you were soft-spoken, if not quiet, with the Trustees. You needed to be assertive”. I had forgotten Prof. Bhaduri’s advice; I had even earlier not acted on it. Indeed, in retrospect, this “soft-spokenness” seems to be the second reason for whatever happened on the eve of my departure. But this is supposed to be EPW, where how you express yourself is not supposed to be important; only what you said was supposed to be.
 
Public or Private Trust?
To return to what I think are the core issues. There appears to be a view that the Sameeksha Trust is a “private” trust and is therefore not answerable to the “public”, or “outsiders”. This is wholly incorrect, legally and substantively.

A private trust is one that is formed for the benefit of a small group of persons, usually a family and usually as a tax shelter; a public trust is one that works for the benefit of the larger community. The Sameeksha Trust does not fall under the first category; it is formally constituted under the second. It is registered under the Bombay Public Trust Act of 1950 which covers, among other things, trusts set up for charitable purposes including education.

The main objects of the Sameeksha Trust, as outlined in the trust deed drawn up in 1966, are to promote the study and advancement of knowledge, publish journals, help institutions conduct teaching, and the like. Its work over the decades has been to be an avenue for dissemination of research, a forum for debate on current affairs and to work for education in the social sciences. The Trust also enjoys tax exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act for donations made to its corpus; it is therefore answerable to the public.

Public trusts cannot claim a privatized existence. It is hoped that the Trustees of Sameeksha Trust will not make this argument to resist engagement with scholars, readers, writers and the larger body public itself, all of whom constitute the EPW Community. If they do hold on to this argument it is the responsibility of the EPW Community to convince them otherwise.

Towards Change
Much of what EPW editorializes on and has stood for is for our institutions to be more democratic in their functioning. Indeed, a longstanding tradition at EPW, going back to the days of Sachin Chaudhuri, has been of openness and democratic functioning. We do have hierarchies in EPW but they are formal; in our work we attempt to relate with each other as equals. There are disparities in our salaries, but they have always been narrow. In physical design as well, our offices have always been open – no individual rooms, closed doors or walled partitions. While we certainly need to do much more, we try to adhere to the principles we call for in the pages of EPW. It is therefore time for the Sameeksha Trust too to look at a way of functioning that is democratic and open to interaction with the public, the very people who have made EPW what it is.

It would be in keeping with the spirit with which EPW was set up that the rules drawn up in 1966 (as embodied in the trust deed) are reexamined in 2016 and changes made where necessary to enable the Sameeksha Trust to perform its role in vastly different circumstances and with a very different EPW than when born in 1966..

I would like to write about two sets of areas of change that need to be made. One is to institute a mechanism for a substantive and may be even formal interaction between the Sameeksha Trust, the Editor of EPW and the EPW Community. The second, and in some ways related to the first, is for an overhaul of the norms and practices for selection of Trustees and duration of terms.

(i) Consultative Body
As one set of correspondents has suggested in its letter:
it could be of … value if the wider ‘EPW community’ of scholars were … given a platform to interact with the Editor and … Trustees … through the establishment of an ‘Interactive Consultative Body’, comprising a dozen or so members drawn from the community of scholars, and chosen by the Trustees in consultation with the Editor. [Such a body] can assist with realizing the Trust’s broad vision of furthering the cause of the social sciences amongst its community, by making available its knowledge and experience toward expanding the outreach of EPW.
 
Such an advisory body could channel suggestions from the EPW Community to the Editor and Trustees, listen to what the Trustees and Editor have to say, and respond to the Editor’s requests on editorial and other matters. How such a body should function, whether it should be a purely advisory body or be endowed with some powers and how it should be constituted, should all be matters for discussion between the Trustees and the EPW Community.

Elsewhere in the world there are trusts which publish newspapers and magazines, and we can study their experiences in order to strengthen the Sameesksha Trust-EPW arrangement.

One well-known example is of the Scott Trust which oversaw the publication of The Guardian in the UK for 70 years. The Scott Trust became a limited company in 2007 and continues to perform the same role as before. It is the sole shareholder of the Guardian Media Group and its main objective is to secure the editorial and financial independence of The Guardian.

Given that the Sameeksha Trust still has only a relatively modest amount of financial reserves and that it has not paid adequate attention since 2007 to increasing its corpus, the working of the Scott Trust in this area (and in others) is something worth learning from. This is only one example; there are many others which would be worth studying.

(ii) Constitution of Board of Trustees Sameeksha Trust.
In a detailed letter I sent to all Trustees of the Sameeksha Trust on 4 January, I listed, based on my experience of working with the Board of Trustees since 2004, what I believe are important issues relating to the constitution of the Board of Trustees that needed to be addressed. Let me mention a few of the more important issues I had highlighted:
(a)    We need to think of the expertise and skills the Trustees should have in order to be able to guide EPW (for example the need to have serving members of the academy, and also persons with experience in/knowledge of each of the following areas: academic publishing, media and the digital world),
(b)    We need to give thought to having a Board of Trustees which is diverse in its composition,
(c)    We must lay down the duration of each term of the Chairperson and Trustees (there are now none), and
(d)    We must have term limits for the Chairperson and Trustees (again none at present).

On the activities of the Trustees itself, I listed what I felt was one important proposal, related to the earlier point about the imperative to secure the financial independence of EPW:
We need to have a standing committee comprising a few Trustees and a few external members which would work on mobilizing funds for the corpus of the Sameeksha Trust on a continuing basis. The past few years have been, in financial terms, reasonably good for EPW, but there is no reason to expect that this will continue. Hence the need to steadily augment the corpus.

I did not receive a reply to my letter of 4 January. Here again it is I think the responsibility of the EPW Community to convince the Board of Trustees to discuss these issues and effect changes.
There are other important areas where we need a discussion. One such is the process of selection of Trustees. The consultative process needs to be much more widespread than at present, perhaps the selection process needs to be even formalized in some manner.

Allegations of Impropriety
Finally, yes, it has been a very difficult time for me and my family over the past several months. It is only now that I am beginning to restore some order in what I do. As difficult as it was, I did not think ever, that there would be suggestions/innuendo of financial impropriety levelled at me. But there have been and please allow me to address at least the two I have heard, which many of you too may have.
(a)    One story is that The Editor drew on EPW funds without prior authorization to incur expenditure on his initiatives to mark 50 years of EPW. The facts: Not one paisa has been spent from EPW’s funds on any of the plans I had drawn up. Not one paisa was spent even from the grant applied for and received from the Tata Trusts to implement these plans. Once the controversy erupted I put everything on hold.

(b)    Another story that has been in wide circulation in Delhi and elsewhere is that there was a conflict of interest involving me because I had planned, again as part of the 50 year celebrations, for EPW to jointly publish a three-volume history with the publishers Orient BlackSwan (OBS) with which my wife is associated. Indeed, my wife is a director at OBS. But the facts: (1) Following a discussion on December 4, 1995 at a meeting of the Board of Trustees (some of whose members are Trustees today as well), Krishna Raj, then Editor of EPW, and what was then Orient Longman (since renamed as OBS) signed an agreement to jointly publish books. This was nine years before I joined EPW, (b) When the publication programme was revived in 2010, I mentioned my personal links to OBS at board meetings on more than one occasion. I was told each time that this was not an issue that needed to be addressed.

For someone who, over the past 10-12 years, has spent so much time and effort on shoring up EPW’s finances, these accusations are, to put them mildly, extremely unfair.

I will not be able to address every such allegation that may follow me from now on. But I would be grateful if you could bring at least these two sets of facts to the attention of those who you may hear mentioning these issues.

In Conclusion
I would like to end on a very positive note by sharing with you the incredibly deep sense of support, warmth and gratitude that has been expressed by a very large number of members of the EPW Community in recent weeks.

The support of all those to whom I am sending this letter has, of course, been overwhelming. All of you expressed your views immediately and, as I said, in complete trust.

I would also like to share with you the fact that a letter of immense affection that all my colleagues at EPW have written to the Board of Trustees, where they write at length about how much they have valued working with me over the years and how much I mean to them. I was not embarrassed by that letter; I was humbled to see that my colleagues held me in such esteem.

Readers and writers of EPW – far too many to count and many of whom I neither know nor had corresponded with earlier — have also written thanking me deeply for what my colleagues and I have done in EPW over the past dozen years. These letters from students, teachers, researchers, public personalities, former colleagues and many “unknown” readers and contributors have praised the EPW we know today.

I am overwhelmed and humbled yet again, by the fact that all of them consider our work since 2004 to have been outstanding.

I cannot ask for more.

Thank you again.
Warmly,
Ram

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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