The Kolkata based Left-Liberal ideology blabbering Telegraph newspaper and its Ananda Bazar Patrika Group (ABP) are learned to conduct another massive retrenchment in the coming weeks. A few days back, Telegraph had terminated the service of 40 staffers in its Kolkata office and 15 staffers from its Noida office. Mostly these staffers belong to the non-journalism side and digital division. Digital Division also sacked several journalists including News Editors. It is learned that the next target is the retrenchment of around 100 journalists working in many Bureaus and Desks in the coming weeks.

Two years ago in 2017, Telegraph and Ananda Bazar Patrika had conducted a massive termination of around 750 journalists across India. Along with this, the left ideology driven newspaper group had shut down its many of its Editions and Bureaus in the Eastern and Northern parts of India. PGurus published a detailed report on how undemocratically ABP Group and moral preaching Telegraph newspaper had kicked out 750 staffers mercilessly[1].

Many journalists’ unions, which are basically Branch Committees of Left parties kept quiet when their ideology-supporting ABP Group retrenched which is against the labour laws and ethics. To avoid litigations under labour laws, many journalists were forced to offer resignation letters during this massive retrenchment. PGurus had published an open letter by a journalist exposing the drastic measures of the ABP Group owners and the silence of the Unions of Journalists[2].

This drastic measure was undertaken by the owner Arup Sarkar by sidelining his luxurious-life leading elder brother Aveek Sarkar from the day-to-day operations. Now Arup Sarkar and his son Atideb Sarkar are running the show in the ABP Group. It is learned that the father and son have prepared a master plan to implement a new massive retrenchment plan. This is unusual – during the election season, newspapers get huge advertising revenues and develop their operations to give better coverage for elections, as political parties engage in huge money spinning.

Insiders believe that the money-oriented father and son wanted to get grab huge election benefits, meaning making profits by cutting the expenditures too. For cost-cutting, managements always prefer the easy way out – cut down the staff salary expenditure and as it is an election season, the issues arising in this retrenchment will fizzle out in the in election fever. That is why the ABP Group has opted the timing of retrenchment during the election season, say many insiders. They point out that during UP Assembly election season not only Telegraph, Hindustan Times also implemented massive termination of staff. Shobhana Bhartia headed Birla Group’s Hindustan Times decided to shut down its bureaus in Allahabad, Varanasi, and Kanpur in January 2017. All these bureaus belong to Uttar Pradesh and the shocking decision came when the Assembly polls were scheduled on March 2017[3]. This clever strategy has now been opted by clever owners to get maximum profits by staff cutting. The newspaper employees’ unions accused Hindustan Times owner Shobana Bhartia of “callous” attitude to maximise the profits by mass termination of employees[4].

References:

[1] Telegraph and Ananda Bazar Patrika terminate more than 750 journalists to cut costs – Feb 3, 2017, PGurus.com

[2] Shocking letter from a terminated Telegraph journalist, exposing media owners & journalist leaders – Feb 15, 2017, PGurus.com

[3] Huge layoffs in big media houses. Hindustan Times shelves around 1000, Ananda Bazar Patrika planning – Jan 7, 2017, PGurus.com

[4] Newspaper employees’ unions accuse Hindustan Times owner Shobana Bhartia of callous mindset – Feb 16, 2017, PGurus.com