Kerala, is in the throes of an indefinite newspaper strike. A section of newspaper agents in God’s own country are demanding a trade discount of 50 per cent of the cover price, festival advances, pension schemes, etc. The strike oddly doesn’t affect papers owned by political parties, including the communist newspaper Deshabhimani.
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From The Hindu:
Minister for social welfare M.K. Muneer and historian M.G.S. Narayanan joined a group of newspaper readers who gathered at a bus station here on Tuesday morning to protest against the ongoing strike by newspaper agents in several parts of Kerala.
The Minister, a leader of the Indian Union Muslim League, and other protesters said they wanted to express their resentment over the strike since it had denied ordinary people their right to read the newspapers of their choice.
The Minister and Dr. Narayanan distributed copies of certain newspapers at the spot.
While it was the legitimate right of every group to launch agitations over grievances, methods of protest that deprive people of their right to information were unfair and indefensible in a democracy, Dr. Muneer said. The strike was unfair since it deprived common people of their daily morning fare of news and information they offered, he said.
Dr. Narayanan, a former chairman of the Indian Council for Historical Research, said that without the morning newspaper ordinary Malayalees like him just felt lost. Several other social workers including a former vice-chairman of the Kerala Sahithya Akademi, U.K. Kumaran, and novelist K.P. Sudheera took part in the demonstration. Kumaran said the striking newspaper agents had a “hidden political agenda.”
IJR 
The week that was lost could not be made up but by starting wall papers in nooks and corners of Kerala villages where they used to collect betel-nut and other farm produce everyone with nothing to do but wait for the Union transfer funds will have a lively discussion.
May be the village panchayat can install a TV set too 24 hours x 7 days.
Runnign a newspaper agency is not easy. The life of a newspaper agnet starts @ 4AM. How long these ministers can distribute paper…. A week, A month. without any leave. Lack of paper distribution staffs is an another problem. Also a high demand of salary hike from staffs side also forced agents to start the strike. If you think twice you can understand another fact, No other things in your dialy life is distributed directly to home. GAS connection may be once a month but people are ready to give service charges they r demanding. Agents put a service charge of 10rs and many are coming forward to oppose this. Don’t get the logic. I personally know all the difficulties behind this. Readers are not going to affect any way. So readers do’t worry. Agents are demanding commission hike with the current newspaper value.