Pairokar

After many years I have had the opportunity to talk to the former editor of the Amrit Prabhat Shri K B Mathur the other day on WhatsApp, who lives near Toronto in Canada with his son. In my life I have worked with three editors, the first one was Shri S K Bose of Northern India Patrika of Allahabad. My stint with him was very brief nearly three months. He was a gem of a man- well-read and punctilious to the core. It was he who was instrumental in sending me to Shri Mathur, who apart from being a good and laborious journalist, has always been a thorough gentleman. My third editor was the late Shri Prabhash Joshi, who was full of bluff and bluster but very fair. He was abstemious and spartan in his personal life but more dedicated to the profession and the proprietor than to the working class. This is my personal viewpoint about him, which does not mean that others would agree with it. Returning to Shri K B Mathur, I can say with all the emphasis at my command that journalists working ...

These days love stories of two women namely, Anju Thomas and Seema Haider (Sachin) have become the talk of the town. Both crossed the borders of their own respective countries to meet their loved ones. The latest one is Anju Thomas, who went from India to Pakistan to marry her lover, Nasarullah. Seema Haider has already been living in for nearly two or three months in India with her new husband Sachin Meena in NOIDA. Their love stories started almost in the same manner through chat on their mobile phones but thereafter the similarity ends. While Seema Haider (Sachin) says that she has bid on Pakistan forever. It is now a closed chapter for her. She says that she would rather die in India than go to Pakistan. She has converted to Hinduism and has been observing all the rites and rituals of her new religion. Anju Thomas, on the other hand, is still indecisive. Sometimes she says that she would go back to India after her tourist visa gets expired. But sometimes she says that she would a...

   First of all, here is news, which has been flashed across all newspapers that an airline Pilot couple in Delhi, who allegedly hired a 10-year-old girl as domestic help and tortured her, were arrested a few days back, and have been sent to jail. According to police, medical tests showed that the girl had sustained some injuries and had burn marks. A case has also been registered against the couple. While the Police are investigating the torture of the minor girl, data shows a substantial increase in child labour during the last year. The statistics show that 311 children were rescued in Delhi itself till June this year in contrast to 107 in the same period last year. It has also been reported that 22 people were arrested under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act this year, whereas only eight people were taken in by police in 2022.  Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act was enacted in 1986 to save ‘childhood’. As per law, nobody can employ children ...

Controversy has flared up across the country over Seema Haider, an illegal migrant from Pakistan to Greater NOIDA of Uttar Pradesh (India) to live with her lovelorn new husband. She claims to have converted to Hinduism and has married a Hindu Sachin at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu (Nepal). She has illegally come to India along with her four minor children but not to create terror or law and order problems. Some people are looking at it as a big security threat because she comes from Baluchistan in Pakistan, they conveniently forget that crores of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas are illegally living in India for decades and are eating into the vitals of our economy. Many of them have even obtained forged documents to be citizens of India. But here is a woman, who has come to marry a boy five younger than her in age and belongs to the Hindu religion. She is being projected by some as a security threat to the country. Nothing could be more ridiculous than this misconceived belief. Can ...

  University and College teachers' appointment processes and interests have changed beyond recognition in the last four to five decades. My father-in-law Dr Sabhajit Mishra, a retired Professor and Head of the Philosophy Department of Deen Dayal Upadhyay University of Gorakhpur, says that in the seventies the salaries of university and college teachers were not as lucrative as they are today yet the desire among good students to become university teacher was very high. The yearning to learn more and excel in their fields was unbeatable. Dr Mishra tells the story of a Professor at BHU, who used to commute from his home to the university on a cycle because he could not comfortably afford any motorised vehicle, however, his enthusiasm to purchase books was seen to be believed. It was generally seen that after collecting his salary every month, the first thing that he used to do was to go to any big bookstore to purchase the new arrivals of books.   See the cont...

    Article 44 of the Constitution of India says: ‘ The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India.’  This was made clear by the makers of the Constitution of India more than 7 decades ago, yet it is still not fulfilled and is being debated at various fora about its utility and applicability. Thus, it is long overdue and should have been implemented in the early fifties. Then there would not have been any need to introduce the Hindu Code Bill. In fact, no nation can become strong and cohesive if it contains different laws and rules for different communities or persons living in the country. Our Constitution speaks of equality and non-discrimination on the ground of caste, creed or sex yet when we find that the discrimination continues in many ways and sometimes it is used as a tool by some people for their ulterior goals. The most unfortunate part of it is that while equality is demanded but the Uniform Civ...

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Sometimes the cover of a book can be deceptive. Normally the title of a book is made catchy to attract the attention of the readers. But what can you say about a serious book having a cumbersome rather embarrassing title like ‘Honeymoon’ by Sushil Chand Shrivastav, an officer in the secretariat of Uttar Pradesh? I hesitated to read this book for more than two years because of its cover title but during this summer vacation, I started reading the book and found it to be amazingly good, highly informative and replete with shlokas, chaupais and folk idioms. The story of the novelette begins with a daughter of an air force officer, who laid down his life in the service of Mother India in the 1971 war and an idealist Sooraj, a son of the retired Vice-Principal of a College. One marvel at the description of the scenario that was built around and after the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. It is like a refreshing memory for those who have witnessed ...