NK'S POST

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...

NK SINGH With the hike in petrol prices cabs have become prohibitive for the populace increasing rush on city bus service --only to add to the woes of the already suffering public. It needs to be emphasised that the bus fares had been increased by 25 per cent some two months ago. Naturally, the passengers had every right to expect better service from the State Road Transport Corporation. However, it is being felt that instead of any improvement the bus service has further deteriorated. The much-publicised 10 new additions to the fleet of 65 city buses have not helped the MPSRTC to improve its image. Certainly, it needs many more buses to maintain a satisfactory service in Bhopal than its present fleet of 75. Where is the fund? The SRTC authorities are already lamenting about the heavy losses suffered by them in the town bus service whose maintenance cost is much more than those in the long route service. In fact, as the General Manager of SRTC, Mr NS Senhi, explained, the losses in cit...

NK SINGH BHOPAL: The All India Radio authorities at Bhopal seem to be unaware of the sky-rocketing prices. To the utter dismay of the listeners, for the past few months, the prices of wheat have not been included in the food-grain price list daily broadcast by the Bhopal station of AIR. Though the Department of Economics and Statistics of the State Government supplies the wheat prices along with the prices of other commodities daily to the AIR, the latter find it more convenient to ignore them. The reason for this shut-your-eyes step is said to be the too-honest data' provided by the department. According to the figures available with the department, the prices of wheat in the 'open market' vary from Rs. 1.50 to Rs. 1.60 per kg. According to the rates fixed by the State Government -- which now controls the wheat trade right at the very beginning of the production pipe line -- it should not have crossed the Rs. 1 mark. Faced with this peculiar situation the AIR authorities w...

NK SINGH Not allowed to marry her lover-boy-next-door and forcibly married to someone else against her will, Prabha, a 14 year Harijan girl of Bhagalpur quietly slipped out of her house one night in utter disgust and Frustration, That was on February 6, 1973. When she was rescued by the police from a ghetto in the same town some nine months later, on October 20, she had a shocking tale to tell. In her hair-raising account, the poor girl narrated recently to a local magistrate the circumstances in which she had fallen prey to the lust of some wealthy businessmen in the town. During the last nine months, she said, she was criminally assaulted several times by a large number of people including some big businessmen and traders of Bhagalpur, whom she named openly in her statement. She said she was tortured and forced to lead a prostitute's life by them. The girl's medical examination confirmed that she was a minor girl of about 14-16 and was subjected to frequent sexual assaults. P...

NK SINGH "And from Madhya Pradesh, you can always report on the Rajahs, the dacoits, the Adivasis and local politics", commented my friend. So here you are, in the land of Rajahs deprived of their privy purses, the dreaded dacoits turned- Sarvodayaites (or is it vice versa?) of the Chambal ravines, the slowly dying adivasis, the 'gulabi channa', or to put it more explicitly, corruption-ridden politics and what my friend had forgotten to suggest a land without a single spark, not to speak of a prairie fire. Even back in 1967-70 Madhya Pradesh was what West Bengal or other comparatively 'conscious' States are today, with no organisation to turn the winter of discontent into spring thunder. One or two, almost feeble, attempts had been made in the Chhatisgarh region because of the influence of neighbouring West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, In 1970, a right-wing sensational weekly had headlined, "Naxalites in M.P.; landlords' heads as doorknobs!" It was...

NK SINGH In a 'top secret rejoinder, the much-debated inner try communication issued at the year by top Naxalite leaders, Kanu Sanyal, Chowary Tejeshwara Rao, Souren Bose, D. Naghushnam Patnaik, Kolla Venkaiah and D. Bhuman Mohan Patnaik, the Satya Narayan Singh group is understood to have made a hard-hitting attack on the former for their stand during the period of the split in the CPI(M-L). At the time of the split in group had supported Mr. Charu Mazumdar against the dissident group led by Mr. S. N. Singh. However, some two years later, in "an open letter" presumably drafted in the Visakhapatnam Centrales, they do all the party comrades, blamed Mr Mazumdar for left adventurist deviations and accused the central committee of deviation from "the path of glorious Naxalite peasant uprising". 'Valuable suggestions' from China! The controversial letter, whose authenticity, had since been confirmed by Mr Kolla Venkaiah, one of the signatories, had evoked wid...

NK SINGH This is a study in contrast, of two murderers who were hanged in the Rajipur Central Jail, Madhya Pradesh, recently. Both of them had been convicted of killing their spouses. 38-year-old Pyarelal, sent to gallows on May 1, was every inch a hardened criminal and remained unrepentant till his last breath. While undergoing trial for killing his wife in 1964, he murdered two fellow prisoners inside the jail following an alteration of a personal nature. Both were fast asleep when their heads were crushed by a heavy boulder and an iron bar. Ultimately, Pyarelal was sentenced to death for the triple murder. 28-year-old Budhram was hanged on June 18 for murdering his wife Man Kunwar, 25, and uncle, Bagarsai, 27, when he found them in a compromising position. The murder, obviously committed in a rage, gave him such a psychosomatic shock that he lost his power of speech and hearing, which he regained only when told that he had been sentenced to death. Change At Last Budhram had turned h...