Ashok Kumar (alias Ashok Das)

Ashok Kumar alias Ashok Das comes from the small town of the province Bihar, Gopalganj. He completed a mass communication degree from India’s best journalism institute, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi. He has been working as a journalist since 2006. He has been associated with reputed media organizations like Lokmat, Amar Ujala, Bhadas4media and Deshonnati. As a political correspondent for five years (2010-2015). He covered various ministries and the Indian Parliament. 
Ashok Kumar (Ashok Das) is founder of ‘Dalit Dastak’. He started ‘Dalit Dastak’ with a group of bahujan intellectual in the year 2012. ‘Dalit Dastak’ is a monthly magazine, website and YouTube channel. Apart from this, Ashok Kumar is also the founder and publisher of ‘Das Publication’. He has attended the Harvard India Conference held at the world-renowned Harvard University in Massachusetts, USA, as a speaker on the topic of ‘Caste and Media’ (February 15, 2020).
India’s prestigious Outlook magazine included Ashok Das in the list of ‘50 Dalit, Remaking India’ published on Ambedkar Jayanti. Ashok Das is the author of 50 Bahujan Nayak, Karishmai Kanshi Ram, 50 Bahujan Sthal, Ek mulakat diggajon ke sath and Bahujan Calendar Books. Under this fellowship, Ashok Das will work on the topic of casteism present in residential complexes in big cities. This project will expose the caste system in residential societies. You can see the story to be done by Ashok Das under ICDR Fellowship Program at www.dalitdastak.com 

Prem Kumar

Born in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand- a tribal state in India, and graduated from Osmania University, Hyderabad in 1995. Since 1996, he has been working in the field of journalism and covering issues for the media. 
He first started working at Weekly Hindi Iron City, where he first published his first publication from Jharkhand, printed in color. He has also worked for Ispat Mail, Jamshedpur; Prabhat Khabar, Jamshedpur; Dainik Jagran, Mordabad; Dainik Bhaskar, Panipat.
Since 2003, he has been an active member and worker for Electronic Media. He worked for Sahara Samay, then launched Morya TV, Bihar (Now it is known as Zee News Bihar) as its Output Head, and also worked with Newsexpress and News World India.
On the side, he worked as an Assistant Professor in IMS Noida in 2017-18 and then worked as a visiting faculty till March this year in ISOMES, an institute for Journalism affiliated to Meerut University.
Currently, he is a talk Show panelist in popular mainstream media and television channels in India. He regularly writes media content for platforms like The Quint, News Click, Janchowk, Satya Hindi, One India.com and several others. 
He is committed to giving voice to the opinions, issues and concerns of downtrodden people, as he recognized that Dalit form the numerically the largest of these downtrodden people in India. 
In this fellowship program, he hopes to be able to establish an online portal PRATIPAKSH - a voice for Dalits, Adivasis and downtrodden people in India is association with Mr. Ashok Bharti, a well-known voice of the downtrodden people in India.

Raj Valmiki

Raj was born in the year 1971 in Jirauli village of Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh. People used to call his settlement as Bhangi Basti or Harijan Mohalla, and this settlement was situated outside the village.
During his childhood, he struggled greatly with being treated inferiorly by his classmates, and experienced the discrimination that many “untouchables” in India have experienced, due to being from a lower caste status. Out of curiosity, he would always ask his parents why he was considered “inferior” when compared to people around him, always asking his parents. He mentioned to us in an interview that “then my parents would answer according to their understanding to pacify my child's curiosity – “Son, we did some bad deeds in the previous life. That's why God has created us in this caste. That is why we are born to serve the people of the upper castes. In this birth we will do good deeds serving them, then in the next birth we will get in the upper caste….” And I would have calmed down. Consider it the will of God”. This sparked his interest to try and fight this status that he had been born with. 
After many ups and downs, struggling a lot, he was still able to study in high school until graduation. Later, he successfully completed a  MSW (Master of Social Work) from Indira Gandhi National Open University, and from there joined the Safai Karamchari Andolan as a worker. It is a movement for eradicating manual scavenging in India. Here, he came to know that what he used to consider as the problem of himself and other people around him in his village and locality, it is nationwide. When he met Bezwada Wilson ji, the national convener of the Safai Karamcharis Andolan, he decided to be a part of his mission - one of the main reasons. This is the reason as to why he has been an integral part of this campaign for the last sixteen years. By joining the Safai Karamcharis movement, he met other manual scavengers like Narayanamma and Saroj Didi etc.and came to know how this practice breaks our life and confidence and Undermines human dignity. 
Nowadays, he is a freelancer, an activist and Editor of a quarterly Magazine of Safai Karmachari Andolan. It's titled “Sangharsh”.
During this fellowship duration at the ICDR, he wants to try and attempt to understand how caste destroys human dignity and through this research, not only does he want to bring to the fore the barbarism of caste, but he also wants to bring to the fore how caste can be eradicated.
Raj will be conducting research work on Manual Scavenging and Manual Scavengers’ life, and more specifically their history, current status and how they can live a dignified life. The main aims of his project is to highlight the problem of scavenging and caste, mark this problem prevailing in the society with some examples, and to prepare the ground for the end of this inhuman practice.
You can find his work on a news portal = Newsclick (PPK NEWSCLICK STUDIO PVT LTD) New Delhi.

Milan Pariyar

Milan Pariyar, was born in a poor Dalit family in Doti Silgadhi, a remote hilly district in the Sudoorpaschim Province, is an inclusive media campaigner.Also known as a Dalit rights activist, he is the executive chairman of SAMATA Media Center and the editor-in-chief of Samatakhabar News Portel. 
Pariyar, who has a bachelor's degree in sociology and journalism, had started the mission journalism journey in 2000 to end the 238-year-old monarchy in Nepal and establish a republic during the armed people's war. Pariyar, who has worked as a Doti District Correspondent in the popular magazine Drishti Weekly, Rajdhani Daily, Nepali Manch Monthly and Naya Patrika Daily published from Kathmandu, Nepal, has also gained experience as the Far West Bureau Chief of Naya Patrika Daily from 2012 to 2014. Pariyar, who got the opportunity to be the first bureau chief from the Dalit community in a mainstream magazine, was awarded the Jagran National Journalism Award every year by the Jagran Media Center in 2012
He was also the founding editor of Jana Sahakarya Paper, a colorful monthly magazine focusing on Dalit issues from Silgadhi, the district headquarters of Doti district. Many of his articles have been published on the protection and promotion of human rights of Dalit and marginalized communities. He was also the editor of the Sam Abhiyan Bulletin, published quarterly by Sam Vikas Kendra Nepal. Success story books have been published under the Local Rights Program, Quality Education Project and Dalit Women Empowerment Project for Local Good Governance run by Euqality Development Cntre. The SAMATA Media Center was established 9 years ago as a non-governmental organization under the leadership of Pariyar, who has been advocating for inclusion in Nepali media. The Center has been conducting media fellowships, weekly radio programs, television programs and journalism training in collaboration with various affiliates. He has been conducting various campaigns for the end of caste system based on Hindu caste system. He is a member of various networks and organizations working in the field of Dalit human rights.
Through his presence at the ICDR’s fellowship program, Pariyar will be conducting a study of the Covid-19’s impact on the Dalit and marginalized communities and its role in the media in Nepal. He was regularly visiting remote villages in the far western region to conduct on-site studies and compile and publish feature stories. Due to the Covid 19 of the first variant, there was a lockdown in Nepal for about 6 months. During the lockdown, he had stayed in the dormitory to inform the Dalit and marginalized community, but was still able to air 24 series of weekly radio programs, Samata 24, on 9 community community radios, interviewing people's representatives of the Dalit community, health workers, officials of the Ministry of Social Development, experiences of the target community, and health messages. It did a great job of informing the Dalit community. In this project, he plans to publish and broadcast as a feature story after studying the impact of Covid on the Dalit community and the role of media.

Laxman Darnal

Laxman has been active in journalism for the past 18 years, where his journalism career started through the radio program Katwal of Jagran Media Center. Starting on radio and TV, he is now active in print media, covering issues ranging from human rights, women segregation and the Dalit movement in Nepal.
He has a master's degree (MA) in journalism, and is currently the General Secretary of the National Dalit Journalists Association of Nepal as well as a member of the Central Council of the Federation of Nepali Journalists and the Press Center is a central member of Nepal. This experience has helped him regularly publishes articles on human rights, inclusiveness and Dalit rights, and he has actively published 3 books on Dalit agenda, incidents of untouchability and caste discrimination and Dalit women's issues, titled “Dalit Agenda in the Constituent Assembly” in 2016, “Media Perspectives on Incidents of Caste Discrimination and Untouchability” in 2020 and  "Situation and issue of Dalit Women" in 2021.
He has also gained some information and experience by working as a Press Advisor in the National Dalit Commission for the Rights of the Dalit Community from 2013 to 2015. Coming from Kathmandu from a difficult place and while working in big media, he himself has experienced discrimination, deprivation and inequality. The impact of Covid on the general Dalit community, the pain suffered by Dalit journalists in Kovid was not normal, and he was also affected.
His personal interests, which he will center on during his fellowship program, are community Based Programs, Human Rights Campaign, and Media Mobilization. He will be involved in different policy level document preparation on caste-based discrimination and untouchability.
You can find his work published here: https://risingnepaldaily.com/ 

Radha Nepali

Radha was born in a poor Dalit family in Arghakhanchi, a remote district in western Nepal, and this village, which is an hour's walk from the district headquarters, did not have access to  water, electricity, health care, transportation, or roads until she was 10 or 15 years old. She is now 31 years old.
She actively believes in change in the society, and her life goal is to speak out on behalf of Dalits, women and marginalized communities through the media, to be involved in human rights campaigns and media operations.
She has been active in journalism for the past 13 years. My journalism started in 2008 with the Dalit Jagran program on Radio Arghakhanchi. Working as the News Chief of naya FM, Co-Editor of Supadeurali National Weekly and Editor of Taranga National Weekly, she is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Nepal Pristha Online, run by Katwal Media Pvt. Ltd.
She is also pursuing a master's degree (MA) in journalism. On the side, she is also a central member of the Federation of Nepali Journalists and also a central member of the National Dalit Journalists Association of Nepal. With this experience, she has also been regularly publishing articles on human rights, inclusiveness and Dalit rights through Gorkhapatra daily.
She is a founding member of Radio Sagarbha. At a time when women's presence in journalism in the district was very low, there were many expressions of demoralization rather than motivation and many challenges. In the current situation where women have not been able to embrace journalism in a sustainable manner, she has been able to stay in the profession of journalism facing constant problems and challenges. Currently, she is also the Central Secretary of the Federation of Nepal Tourism Journalists.
She has been constantly raising her voice by participating in the campaign for the upliftment of Dalits, women and Dalit women. During the pandemic, she went to the villages to report on the relief distribution program to the Dalit, women and marginalized communities and also took the initiative for the relief program.
You can find the work she will be publishing during the fellowship on these two Nepalese journalism broadcasting websites: Gorkhapatra Daily and Naya patrika Daily

Fellowship Program for Dalit Journalists

The Fellowship Program for Dalit Journalists launched for Dalit Journalists in South Asia who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this Fellowship ICDR is looking for stories that break new ground and expose wrongdoings, such as caste-and gender-based discrimination, human rights violations, corruption, malfeasance, and/or abuse of power, in the public and private sectors.