At a time when every newspaper and every television channel, right from national to local, resorted to ruthless sacking of employees and slashing of salaries due to loss of revenue during the lockdown period, there was a small ray of hope for the employees of Namasthe Telangana and its sister concern Telangana Today.
The employees of these two papers were hoping that they might not face the salary cuts because they are the mouth-pieces of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi led by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and have huge backing of the state government in the form of advertisements.
Another reason for their hope was that Sakshi, the media house owned by YSR Congress party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, has not resorted to any salary cuts for its employees. So, they thought when Jagan can come to the rescue of his media house employees, KCR, too, might do it.
But on May 1, when the entire country was observing May Day, the employees of Namasthe Telangana and Telangana Today received a huge shock when they were told that they would be facing a salary cut ranging from 20-40 per cent depending on the salary slabs, since the revenues of the newspapers have come down drastically.
Naturally, it was thoroughly disappointing for the employees of the two dailies. They wonder when the chief minister’s own paper indulges in this kind of injustice, what can journalists from other dailies expect from the government.
