I always admired P. Sainath. Not because he is famous. I liked his way of reporting. Recently he has been in Trivandrum, capital of Kerala (the southern most state in India), for the release of his book in Malayalam. P.S Jayan has done an interview with him in Mathrubhumi daily. I cut it and kept it in my dairy. Later I decided to write an article about it.

More details about P. Sainath is available in the following link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palagummi_Sainath

This is an Independent translation of the interview. I found his observations have got much relevance today especially when we are heading for a union budget.
P. Sainath wrote his book ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts’ from his real life experiences in Bihar. His fight was against the bureaucrats and the middle men in the system. The search for the miseries of Indian farmers made Sainath the most famous rural reporter in the world.
India ranks fourth in terms of millionaires in the world. But in terms of human development index India’s rank is 134.  Cuba at 54. Sriland and Bolivia are well ahead of us. These countries may not have the wealth that India has. But they implement poverty eradication programs more fruitfully. India has the most number of under nutrition ed children in the world. These are the naked facts says Sainath. We talk only about our GDP figures and IT revolution. National family health survey pointed out that 46 percent of children, below the age of 5, lack nutrition in India!
India shines because of the GDP numbers but 31 percent of the GDP is handled by only 52   millionaires in India. More than 300 days in a year Sainath lives in the villages of India. He does not call him as a development journalist instead he calls himslef “Rural Reporter”. Sainath disagrees with today’s style of ‘glamour reporting’. Earlier he said that there are two types of journalists, one is journalist and the other is stenographer. But now he says he was wrong in calling the journalist a stenographer. Because it is a shame on the stenographer himself. Today’s journalists receive money from Ambani’s and write for them so they can not be termed as stenographers blames Sainath. Now reporters are not ready to do hard work. They want to finish their jobs as early as possible without doing home work  Sainath pointed out.