Feb 10, 05 Fundraiser with Sainath
Interview with P. Sainath, Asia's leading development journalist about poverty, globalization and the social structure in India.
Mumbai-based P. SAINATH is Asia's leading development journalist, writing frequently about issues such as poverty and the effects of industralization on India.
Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen describes him as "one of the world's greatest experts on famine and hunger". Through his work on the livelihoods of India's rural poor, Sainath has changed the nature of the development debate in India and across the world.His landmark book, "Everybody Loves a Good Drought," written in 1996 is a devastating portrait of Indian government economic policies gone awry.
He received international recognition after he spent two years in the poorest districts in India, reporting about the daily struggles of the citizenry. He covered everything from agriculture subsidies to starvation deaths. That work formed the basis for his book.
Sainath has won numerous awards for his reportage,including the European Commission's Natali 1994. In November 2001, he won the Boerma Journalism Prize from the United Nations Food and Agricutural Organization -- the most important award in development journalism.
Describing Sainath's work, University of California journalism lecturer Conn Hallinan says, "He does then kind of reporting American journalists only think about doing. I don't know anybody who's better at it."
