27-year-old Shubham Sharma of Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh started an online news portal named Khabar Satta on 17 June 2017.He says that “our traditional media is mainly focused on urban areas and news from rural India is always sidelined. We try to give voice to the people of rural areas,” Shubham told 5 Dariya News. Shubham Sharma invested his money to start the news portal by saving his expenses to start the news portal, journalist Shubham Sharma Claimed that now the Kahabasta website gets 15000 to 20,000 visitors every day. Shubham Sharma says that he understands the problems of the people of the rural areas of India, the voice of the villagers is given prominence because the Khabar Satta News Portal to bring the voice of the villagers to the big national news channels Works as a bridge.Simultaneously, editor and journalist Shubham Sharma said that Khabar Satta is an attempt to "rebuild the meaning of journalism in rural India".He says that “Most of our writers write about problems affecting people, such as unemployment and lack of agricultural inputs. We also cover success stories like rural business innovations and best practises in farming”
Most of the mainstream media organisations fail to understand the demographics and problems of rural India as they speak from a privileged high ground. Most of the news does not even reach the people of urban areas as they are considered unimportant in the traditional news rooms.Khabar Satta is trying to bridge this gap by reaching out to those who have no voice in the traditional media, but have "interesting and important stories to tell in the form of stories from cities or towns." "Khabar Satta has a small team who, according to Shubham Sharma, "work day and night to bring stories from different parts of the country."Apart from being the editor of Khabar Satta, Shubham Sharma also writes for various mainstream news platforms to provide even greater reach to the stories.Khabar Satta is dependent on advertisements for its revenue and is planning to increase its reach. Shubham Sharma says, “We are planning to start a Hindi language newspaper soon, which will mainly cover the news from rural areas.”The daily will include reports from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.
Shubham Sharma plans to keep an eye on rural immigrants working in cities like Delhi and Mumbai.Shubham Sharma says that – “It will help us to stick to our roots and it can prove to be helpful in bringing rural talent back to rural areas, which is very important for the development of these areas,”Shubham Sharma says that the newspaper will be published from Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh. They plan to print ten thousand copies every day and expect each copy to be read by around 10 people which will give them access to one lakh every day.Elaborating further, he says that the news will be collected from a network of journalists and stringers working in various rural areas, who are well versed with the ground realities.Khabar Satta has big plans but there are also some serious obstacles. “Our biggest challenge is getting money. Madhya Pradesh is a big state, but it is also the most difficult state for a newspaper like ours to start.We are constantly trying to come up with new and innovative ideas to reach out to the people who are currently not getting the news they should be getting.Despite the challenges, Khabar Satta is making progress in bringing news from rural areas.Shubham Sharma says his new plans include making the website "a much more engaging and interactive look and with an entirely new English section".He further added that – We are also planning to start India's first audio newspaper and a TV show to take forward our development plan. However, funding is very important for these ideas and we are working to get as much support as possible to make a voice out of rural India.