POST’S well-deserved award

ON BEHALF of the religiously-diverse leadership and country membership of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (Gopio International) and the Indian Diaspora Council (IDC), both based in the US, I extend our congratulations to the POST and its editor, Krisendra Bisetty, for the recognition the editorial team and the 63-year-old publication received from the Shri Mariammen Temple Society on Good Friday, with the presentation of the Ammen Award.

Over the years, the Ammen Award has honoured a string of high-achieving community, cultural, professional, political personalities and organisations of not merely Indian origin, but of multiracial lineages, a hallmark of a socio-religious movement to embrace rather than to alienate communities.

By receiving this prestige citation, the new-look POST under the current editorial stewardship has joined a pantheon of progressive individuals and agencies that are actively connecting the dots of the community co-existing in a melting pot society of multiculturism.

The newspaper has a very long association and community connectivity with Indians, chiefly in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, where the bulk of its readership resides.

The Greater Durban Region, predominant with 800 000 Indians, is its biggest base – including its advertisers and community-spirited organisations like this historic temple.

The temple is a living testimony of how the 1860 semi-slaves that were brought from India to toil on sugar cane plantations like Mount Edgecombe shaped their survival traits and propensity for religion, culture, local economy, education and politics.

Over Easter when Christianity revisits its ancient moral compass this Hindu institution promotes a version of celebration of the Gods and a platform to recognise pioneering people trying to change a very complex society such as the new South Africa.

In its publishing heydays the

POST (originally Golden City POST) covered news and sports across the racial spectrum, including Nelson Mandela’s Treason Trial that changed the course of resistance politics in apartheid South Africa, and the newspaper produced some of the finest African, Indian and Coloured wordsmiths and lens men and women, many of whom have earned legendary status for their collective brave brand of journalism.

In times of modern media via the competing advent of the revolutionising social media, POST has steered toward its niche of community coverage first with a kaleidoscope of stories, features, commentary and regular socio-religious, cultural and festival themed supplements and historical time lines.

The award is well deserving and we trust that it will propel POST and Independent Media to achieve its ambition as a national mid-weekly publication by embellishing and retracing its footprints in major cities like Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Pretoria.

The progress of Indians, individuals and institutions, anywhere in the world, especially through active participation, social engagement and cohesion and dialogue with their indigenous counterparts and compatriots, as opposed to the apathy of self-alienation, is always welcomed by Gopio International and as well as the IDC.

MARLAN PADAYACHEE Gopio International & Indian Diaspora Council Durban