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Showing posts from May, 2023

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Resentment against hike in bus fare mounting in Bhopal

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NK SINGH Though a Govt. directive has frustrated the earlier efforts of the MPSRTC to increase the city bus fares by as much as 300 per cent, the public resent even the 25 per cent hike. It is "totally unjust, uncalled for and arbitrary", this is the consensus that has emerged from an opinion conducted by "Commoner" among a cross-section of politicians, public men, trade union leaders, and last but not least, the common bus travelling public. However, a section of the people held, that an average passenger would not grudge a slight pinche in his pocket provided the MPSRTC toned up its services. But far from being satisfactory, the MPSRTC-run city bus service in the capital is an endless tale of woe. Hours of long waiting, over-crowding people clinging to window panes frequent breakdowns, age-old fleet of buses, unimaginative routes and the attitude of passengers one can be patient only when he is sure to get into the next bus are some of the ills plaguing the city b...

P. C. Sorcar - Prince of Magic

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  Sorcar's famous 'Cutting a lady in Half with an Electric Circular Saw' .                                        NK SINGH Indrajal, the ancient Indian magic, is a great art, an art that entertains the eye and mind through suspense. It flourished in the royal courts of India. Remember King Vikramaditya, Raja Bhoj, Queen Bhanumati, for instance. Further back we find it mentioned in the epics, in the Tantra Shastras, in the Atharvaveda. Its masters kept it a secret. It was handed over from preceptor to pupil, father to son in great test secrecy. And this too much secrecy killed magic in India. Thereafter it survived in the streets as a means of livelihood of the illiterate, impoverished Jaduwalas, with only a limited repertoire and unaware of the vast changes occuring in the magical art ou...