Publisher and editor of the Mithila Jagaran weekly and its online edition http://www.mithilajagaran.com, Akul Prasad Sah, has expressed worry over the continuation of his media after he was quarantined with the detection of coronavirus. On August 14, Saha shared his story from the quarantine at Sapahi, Dhanusha, a district in Province 2 of Nepal.
FF’s representative from province-2 Rajan Singh reported that editor Sah was unable to update news on the online due to lack of electricity and internet facility in the quarantine.
Even after the repeated requests to the administration, they did not address any of the citizens’ problems, shared Sah through a live update on his Facebook page on eleventh day of his stay in quarantine. Amid stress due to COVID infection, it has become difficult to spend time without internet, he added. He has also tried to make the province government aware of poor management in the quarantine.
Freedom Forum is concerned with the poor management of the quarantine. Although health is the first priority in this crisis, this incident shows how media is also affected badly with the journalists taking to ill with the coronavirus. FF urges the concerned authority to provide necessary facilities to the people staying in quarantine. The spread of COVID-19 is on the rise of late- more than 1100 recorded today (Aug 27) itself.
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