Morcha that was not news
On March 11, more than 20,000 people from all over Maharashtra walked from Byculla to Azad Maidan in Mumbai to protest against the killing of the veteran communist leader Mr Govind Pansare (and of Dr Narendra Dabholkar earlier) by unknown assailants last month. After a very long time, the city was witness to such a large morcha by left parties and other progressives groups. And yet, next day, the media coverage reduced the morcha to the margins. DNA and HT only had photos with brief captions, but no report. ToI buried the news about the morcha under suburban train line disruption and that too, because it held the 'city to ransom'; besides, its report reduced the number of protestors to a mere 1,000! The IE with a separate city supplement, Mumbai Newsline, the city paper Mumbai Mirror, Mint and the Hindi NBT, did not consider it newsworthy at all.