Protesting the abrupt exit of the Editor of the Economic and Political Weekly ( EPW ) Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and reminding the trustees of the journal of their accountability to the larger public, 150 academics have urged the Sameeksha Trust to take immediate steps to restore the prestige and credibility of the journal.
By forcing the Editor’s resignation without clarifying its stand on the substance of the articles ordered to be taken down, the Board has diminished the institution that it is mandated to nurture, the academics said in an open letter to the trustees.
Articles removed
On July 18, Mr. Guha Thakurta resigned from his position after the Board of Trustees of the Sameeksha Trust — Romila Thapar, Dipankar Gupta, Deepak Nayyar, Rajeev Bargava, Deepak Parekh, D.N. Ghosh, Andre Beteille and Shyam Menon— asked him to take down two articles on Adani Power Limited with immediate effect.
‘Well-wishers’
The letter stated: “As long-standing well-wishers and members of the intellectual community served by the EPW , we are appalled and dismayed by the recent events leading to the abrupt resignation of the Editor, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.”
The signatories include Abhijit Bannerjee from MIT, Ramachandra Guha, Zoya Hasan, Martha Nussbaum among others.
The signatories have also cautioned that India is currently living through a dark period in which there are real concerns about freedom and independence of intellectual expression, both for academics and journalists, with significant corporate takeover of major media houses and increasing instances of overt and covert intimidation of independent thinking and debate.
