Public & Secret Histories of Our Times
NK SINGH
Published on 4 October 2015
Updated 12 March 2022
With the growth in population, literacy rate and disposable income, the circulation of newspapers has zoomed in the last two decades, especially those published in the Indian languages. It is not rare for chain newspapers to claim a daily circulation is excess of a million copies. A newspaper selling less than a hundred thousand copies is considered a small daily now-a-days. Continue reading “Media’s Love Affair with Rich & Powerful”
Madhya Pradesh is a graveyard of English newspapers
NK SINGH
Published in Subah Savere, 7 August 2015
भोपाल से महज 160 किलोमीटर दूर हरदा में चार अगस्त की रात को एक भीषण रेल हादसा हुआ. जैसा कि स्वाभाविक है, अगली सुबह भोपाल के ज्यादातर बड़े अख़बारों में यह खबर पहले पन्ने पर थी.
सीमित साधनों वाले कुछ छोटे अख़बार, खासकर वे अख़बार जिनके पास अपना छापाखाना नहीं है, जरूर इस महत्वपूर्ण खबर को नहीं छाप पाए. खबर न छापने वालों में यह दैनिक भी शामिल है. (वैसे सुबह-सवेरे अपने आप को “दैनिक समाचार पत्रिका” कहता है.)
भोपाल के जिन दो बड़े समाचार पत्रों में हरदा हादसे की खबर उस दिन नहीं छपी, वे हैं —- हिंदुस्तान टाइम्स और टाइम्स ऑफ़ इंडिया. यह दोनों कोई छोटे-मोटे सीमित साधनों वाले अख़बार नहीं है. Continue reading “क्यों नहीं चलते हैं मध्य प्रदेश में अंग्रेजी के अखबार”
Byline in a reputed journal like Frontier firmed up my resolve of joining journalism.
I was advised to learn typing and shorthand if I wanted to become a reporter. So I joined a typing institute. I could never learn shorthand. But soon enough I was able to type ‘A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ without looking at the keyboard. Continue reading “Typewriter Guerrilla, Year 1969”
That cold December night of 1984 will be etched in my memory forever. I was fast asleep under a warm quilt in Bhopal when the phone rang.
My friend RaajumarKeswani, a journalist, living in the old quarters of the town, sounded agitated, a little incoherent and was gasping for breath and coughing.
He said there was a commotion in the street, people were running around and something had happened. “I am having a problem breathing,” he said.
I came out of my house and was greeted by a bizarre sight. It was almost 1 in the night but the normally deserted road was jam-packed with people as far as my eyes could see.
They were walking silently, visibly tired, some of them carrying children in their arms, others supporting older people. Many lay on the footpath. Quite a few were very ill and vomiting. Several others were trying to stop vehicles, already overloaded with people.
I asked a person: what happened?”
“The gas tank in Union Carbide has burst,” was the reply. Continue reading “‘For several nights I’d weep as I typed’”