Sanjay Kumar along with Rahul Verma and Dhananjay Singh designed the research instruments for a readership survey for Khabar Lahariya, a very innovative newspaper written in the local language, Bundeli. Research Instruments included Questionnaire design, Sampling etc. Data checking, Data Entry and Data analysis was also done at Lokniti, CSDS. A day long Field Investigators training Workshop was conducted by Rahul Verma at Chitrakoot in Bundelkhand on August 13th, 2010. The survey was conducted between 14th August to 22nd August 2010.

A little more about Khabar Lahariya…

Written in the local language, Bundeli, Khabar Lahariya provides a mix of news, information and entertainment specifically for its Bundelkhandi audience - rural and with mostly low levels of literacy. The eight-page newspaper covers current political news, stories on the functioning of panchayats, the bureaucracy, schools and hospitals in the region. Its distinctive reportage of atrocities on women and marginalized sections of society critiques the tendency of contemporary media to sensationalize such incidents. Khabar Lahariya is written, edited, illustrated, produced and marketed by a group of women - most of them from marginalised Dalit, Kol and Muslim communities - in Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh in north India. The publication began in May 2002 in Chitrakoot and a second edition was launched in the adjoining Banda district in October 2006. Presently, between both editions, Khabar Lahariya has a print run of almost 5,000 copies, and a readership of over 25,000 in over 400 villages in both districts. Khabar Lahariya’s objective of reaching out to villages in which other forms of information and entertainment were limited has been enthusiastically worked at, and now the paper is something of a name in the area. 

In March 2004 Khabar Lahariya received the prestigious Chameli Devi Jain Award – an annual award for outstanding women journalists from Media Foundation, New Delhi. For rural women’s media collective to get an award of this nature constitutes an important breakthrough in the male-dominated world of rural journalism. Three members of the group have also received fellowships from the Dalit Foundation in 2004, for reporting on issues related to rights of the Dalit community. 

Khabar Lahriya was initiated by Nirantar. Nirantar works towards empowering women through education – by enabling access to information, promoting literacy and engendering education processes. However in 2008 the Khabar Lahariya group registered as an independent organization, Pahal.