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NEWSNOTES: OBITUARY
True to His Roots Unto the End
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K. Vijayabhaskara Reddy
( 1920-2001)
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When Kotla Vijayabhaskara
Reddy, twice chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and twice Union minister,
was unseated by Telugu Desam Party patriarch N.T. Rama Rao, the loss took
nothing from his stature. The strongman of arid Rayalseema remained a
trusted Congress satrap and a member of the party's apex working committee.
Trained to be a lawyer, Reddy spoke out his mind unhesitatingly in private
conversation. On occasion he went public with his views, often to his
own embarrassment. However, he remained clear of charges of corruption
unlike most Congress chief ministers the state has seen in the past 25
years. Reddy never forgot his roots. He developed a farm in his native
Laddagiri village in Kurnool district and initiated schemes to improve
infrastructure in the district. His electoral rivalry with NTR led to
his banning the sale of arrack in the state and introducing the plan to
sell rice for a very low price to the poor.
Not many politicians of his vintage took any
interest in sports. Reddy, though, cultivated a deep interest in cricket,
football and hockey. But the man with the strapping physique, far from
being a health freak, was a chain smoker who did not stub his cigarette
even in Indira Gandhi's presence.
—Amarnath K. Menon
The Last Assignment
In case there is a crash,
I don't want people to say I had gone on an empty stomach," Ranjan
Jha had said before leaving for Kanpur with Madhavrao Scindia and seven
others on the morning of September 30. Coming from someone with a wacky
sense of humour, nobody took his remark seriously. But even if they had,
they couldn't have kept the dedicated journalist from his assignment.
Jha, a special correspondent with Aaj Tak since 1996, had a penchant for
political reportage. Though his beat was the Congress, the presence of
politicians cutting across party lines when his mortal remains arrived
in Delhi stood testimony to the circle of friends he had.
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Gopal Bisht
(1949-2001)
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His colleague and senior cameraman Gopal Bisht
was also with him on the ill-fated flight. Bisht joined Aaj Tak when it
was launched in 1995, prior to which he was with Doordarshan. Though he
missed his old beta cameras, he was thankful to new technology for lightening
the load off his shoulders. Colleagues remember him as someone whose eyes
missed nothing. For the first episode of Rajiv Shukla's Rubaru, Scindia
was the first guest and Gopal the first cameraman. Today, it may sound
a trifle uncanny.
—Mridula Chettri Singh
SIGNPOSTS
DIED
 Anju
Sharma from The Hindustan Times. The 32-year-old alumnus of Cambridge
School and Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi started her journalistic career
in 1990 with the daily. She had distinguished herself as a dedicated and
meticulous journalist.
DIED
 Journalist
Sanjiv Sinha, 34. A special correspondent with The Indian Express, the
post-graduate from St Stephen's College had been zealously pursuing the
Congress beat for the past four years.
TAKEN BACK
Seema Antil's gold medal-incidentally, India's only gold at the 2000 World
Junior Athletic Meet-for testing positive for a banned drug. The discus
thrower, however, has been let off with just a warning because she consumed
the drug inadvertently.
NARROW ESCAPE
Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and
four others when the rotor of the helicopter in which he was travelling
broke and the copter crash-landed from a height of 100 m in Bokaro.
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