Khabar Lahariya is now the country’s only women-run brand of digital first rural news. It reaches 3,00,000 people a month through a print edition in Bundelkhand and multiple digital platforms. Khabar Lahariya has a network of 24 women reporters in 8 districts of Uttar Pradesh. KL's popularity lies in the fact that it reports on local governance issues, rigorously monitors the implementation of sch
emes for the rural poor and tracks the disbursement of public money for rural development. In areas that are completely out of the spotlight of media attention, it has become a local watch dog and a weapon of the weak. What makes Khabar Lahariya unique is not just its journalists – women from Dalit, tribal, Muslim and backward castes – but also its journalism. In areas that are completely out of the spotlight of media attention, it follows the everyday stories of everyday people. It is a powerful local watchdog, an instrument for enforcing grassroots accountability. In exposing the acts of omission and commission by the local bureaucracy/political class, the news – in digital, print, audio formats – today brings to light the growing distance between the promises made by the government in terms of rural development and empowerment, and the actual delivery on the ground.
