Konkani 'Sunaparant' to shut down from 1 Aug

GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 29 July 2015 19:42 IST

Sunaparant, a sole Konkani daily running in Goa’s official language for the last 28 years, is scheduled to be closed from 1 August, a Journalist’s Day Goa observes.

Dattaraj Salgaoncar, Goa’s leading industrialist, has been running the newspaper singlehandedly by bearing the financial loss, to take ahead the cause of Konkani movement.

The sudden closure, which is expected to be officially announced tomorrow, will result into 27 employees losing their jobs.

In view of this, a delegation of Goa Union of Journalists, today met chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar to salvage the situation.

“He was shocked as the only newspaper in Goa’s official language is closing down. He has promised us to look into the matter”, said Sadguru Patil, the GUJ president.

Concerned journalists have also requested legislators from all the parties and independents to raise the issue in the Assembly tomorrow, during the debate on Directorate of Information, expecting a reply from the government, especially chief minister Parsekar.

The Sunaparant staffers, many of whom are Konkani activists, writers, dramatists and even filmmakers, are completely shattered due to double loss – losing their livelihood and the passion of Konkani they worked for.

Sunaparant was started on 13 May 1987, soon after Konkani was made the official language earlier on 4 February, after a prolonged struggle Goans fought for.

Chandrakant Keni, who was also editing Rashtramat, was the founder editor of the four-page Konkani newspaper started from Margao, the fort of Konkani movement.

He was succeeded by Uday Bhembre and Raju Nayak, after which the black and white newspaper was shifted to the capital city of Panaji, with 10 pages and making it coloured, in 2004.  

Sandesh Prabhudesai, Anant Salkar and Babali Naik served as its editors while Mahesh Divekar was made an acting executive editor, little before the decision was taken to shut it down.

“Sunaparant is more than a newspaper for us. It gave a big boost to the literary movement of Goa and gave birth to hundreds of books in fiction, non-fiction and lifestyle. It’s really sad to hear the news”, said Madhav Borkar, president of Goa Konkani Academy.

Then why was it closed down?

“The increasing production cost has made it impossible to run a newspaper. I have been running it in a loss for the last 28 years, since it was for a cause. But, unfortunately, Sunaparant did not get the expected response from Konkani readership and advertisers though Konkani movement has become much stronger. Sunaparant also did not get the official patronage and support from Goa government it deserved after Konkani becoming official language”, said Dattaraj Salgaoncar.

A responsible official of the Goa Publications Private Ltd, the company publishing Sunaparant, said there are huge amount of government dues pending while the newspaper also did not get the advertising rate it deserved from the government.

The Konkani activists are depressed as well as agitated as the sole Konkani newspaper is closing down. People have started discussing how the situation could be salvaged.

Some of the young students have even started a WhatsApp group called ‘Sunaparant Revival’, discussing various possibilities to revive the newspaper.   

Chetan Acharya, president of Konkani Bhasha Mandal, said such ventures can't be run merely with emotional fervour but with a philosophy of perform or parish. 

"There is scope to run a Konkani newspaper, but then it has to be run professionally", he said. 

Gokuldas Prabhu, president of the All Indian Konkani Parishad, suggests holding the proposal and re-working on its advertising and marketing strategies rather than shutting it down.

But the management doesn’t seem to be in a mood to do so while efforts are in full swing to approach the management officials and the owner to SAVE SUNAPARANT.


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