Dailies 2013, Issue 8 Indian Institute Of Journalism and New Media, Bangalore March 20, 2013

EIGHTEEN inmates at Bangalore central jail-have died from minor, preventable ailments and the prison’s own doctor has admitted they are at breaking point.

While major dis-eases like HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis are claiming lives, minor ailments are also being recorded for dead pris-oners in Bangalore.

In the last three years in Bangalore Central Jail, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis have been listed as one of the reasons of death for 18 and 16 patients respectively.

Curable ailments like hypertension, dia-betes, gastroenteri-tis and anaemia are among some of the dis-eases listed for another 18 prisoners’ deaths. Psychological disor-ders, minor and major, cancer and heart mal-

functioning too are list-ed next to the names of 15 prisoners, as diseases they suffered from at the time of their deaths.

The prison hospi-tal is equipped with a lab where the patients’ blood sugar levels can be tested and diabetics are even often referred to the Karnataka Insti-tute of Diabetes, yet six patients have lost their lives to diabetes in the last three years, a dis-ease which is not fatal and a person can live with.

A Right To Informa-tion response in De-cember last year stated only 79 of the 4126 prisoners were suffer-ing from Diabetes.

However, the prison doctor, in an honest and frank interview with the Daily Observer, ad-mitted this was incor-rect and has blamed overcrowding and lack of funding for the mess the jail is in.

Dr. Kumar K, Medi-

cal Officer, Bangalore Central Jail, said:

“There are about 400 diabetic patients in the prison. They are either on prescribed drugs or insulin.

Even a report by NIMHANS says that eight percent of a com-munity suffers from dia-betes.”

Another miscalcula-tion by the prison medi-cal staff in reply to the RTI was the number of patients suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Dr Kumar said at least 30 prisoners are on anti-retroviral ther-apy (ART) at the mo-ment while 40-50 are HIV positive.

However, the RTI reply stated only 17 were suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Among various health issues, the doc-tor is also concerned about the issue of over-crowding in the prison.

He said: “BCJ has a capacity of only 2100 but it is almost 100 per-

cent overloaded. Two years ago, there were almost 5000 prisoners.

“There is hardly any space between two prisoners and this leads to a lot of diseases to occur and spread in the prison. Scabies, a skin infection, is very com-mon in the prison.”

With this large num-ber of prisoners there isn’t enough medical staff to supervise their health.

“The prison has a total strength of 4126 prisoners with 3978 male prisoners and 148 female prisoners.

For this large strength there are only two male medical of-ficers out of the four sanctioned by the gov-ernment, and one fe-male nurse, out of an-other four sanctioned.

“Until two years ago, there were two lady doctors in the hospital but not anymore,” said the doctor.

Continued on PAGE 3

DISEASED DUNGEONS

Udita Chaturvedi

Dead from minor illnessDEATHS

18LEADING

CAUSES OF DEATH

Heart Disease HIV/AIDS

PRISON CAPACITY

2100CURRENT CAPACITY

4126

Karnataka Assembly polls announced for May 5th More on PAGE 2

He will “visit every taluk” as part of his election campaign.

“We will do something to curb the poverty in Karnataka.”

“We have to deal with issues like irrigation and poverty.”

Jagdish Shettar B.S.Yeddyurappa H.D.Kumaraswamy

Minor ailments lead to the deaths of many inmates in Bangalore Central Jail, a Right to Information (RTI) query reveals.

The Daily Observer| March 20, 2013 02

By Priyanka Roy

Residents go to court over land rowUP to 80 per cent of land in Bangalore designated for residential use has been given to commer-cial premises, according to campaigners.

One residents’ group in JP Nagar has aklready gone to court to seek re-dress and residents say many areas of the city are affected.

They say the BBMP is breaching the Karnataka Town & Country Planning Act, 1961, which clearly states that the limit on commercial businesses within residential areas is 20 per cent.

It also states that con-sent from those living in the area should be obtained before any construction takes place. Residents of several city duburbs say this has not happened.

Residents in J.P. Nagar

filed a lawsuit two months ago against companies and retail chains like Adiga, Woodland and Mayura for constructing their outlets in their area.. The case went to the High Court and is still pending.

People living in Gayathrinagar suffered the same problem. The residents were agitated after a power loom fac-tory was opened near to their homes. The Factory Act, 1948 says power loom factories are not allowed to build within residential area but it was violated in this case.

Following this inci-dent one resident from Gayathrinagar filed a case in the High Court against the power loom factory but no action has been taken against it.

The head of the NGO, Coalition Against Corrup-tion (CAC), Mr. RN Guru, said: “Commercial build-ings are mushrooming up all across the city en-croaching land and leading

to the scarcity of land for parking spaces, footpaths,

roads and other vital pur-poses.”

He added: “Though there is lot of hue and cry all over the city for scarcity of land nobody cares to protest against these prob-

lems.“Beside,a large num-

ber of commercial es-tablishments don’t own trade licenses. In the month of December, the commissioner of BBMP, Mr.Siddaiah, agreed at a press conference that out of five lakh commer-cial establishments, only 10% had trade licenses. To fix such a massive breach the commission-er promised to tighten up the process of obtaining licenses.

A new project was proposed by the BDA

named Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP)

2015 and it was decided that they will include com-mercial as well as residen-tial areas for town planning projects. This project was approved by government in 2006.

But last year, 17 pe-titioners including the Citizen Action Forum, Sa-dashivanagar Resident’s Welfare Association and other private individuals condemned the plan as il-legal and challenged it in court.

Mr.Guru said that there is an appellate court for cit-izens to file lawsuit against such civil bodies, but hard-ly anyone comes forth and takes any initiative to act, as they know it’s going to be a lengthy process to fight in court. He claimed citizen apathy was as much to blame as big busi-ness and the BBMP.

MEMBERS of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) today urged Air India not to ship animals to laboratories.

In a unique form of pro-test, three members of PeTA dressed in prisoner suits and animal masks, knelt inside steel cages holding signs that read “Air India flies animals to labs - Jet Airways doesn’t.”

Dr.Chaitanya Koduri, Science Policy Advisor for PeTA, said: “The protest is to reverse Air India’s decision to transport animals to laborato-ries not only within India but abroad as well, where the an-imals are caged, experiment-ed upon and then killed.”

He said that they had tried to talk to the chairman of Air India for over six months but received no response.

Koduri further said: “They keep assuring us that they will not transport animals but they still do. We have evi-dence from the Secretary of Civil Aviation, K.N.Srivastava, who confirmed that Air India still flies animals to labs.”

While a manager of Air India refused to comment on this, an employee Chandra (name changed on request), said: “This is an unnecessary

protest. They have taken money from Jet Airways to promote their airlines and to demote Air India, as Jet Air-ways is one of its competi-tors.

They are not presenting any solid evidence to us and neither are they showing the so-called written statement by the Jet Airways manage-ment that says they do not transport animals.”

In response to this, Dr.Koduri told that PeTA have its freedom of expression. He said that animals ranging from rats to horses are still

being transported and are ul-timately killed.

He added: “We are happy to promote Jet Airways if it’s for the cause of animals. We will support the organization that is “not cruel” to animals, and if people think that this is promoting Jet Airways, then so be it. We will continue pro-testing all over India peace-fully until Air India reverses this terrible decision.”

Mr. RN Guru, CAC NGO head

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Air India yet again in the news for illegally flying animals

KINGMAKER B.S. Yedyurap-pa is expected to announce his intention to contest the upcoming state assembly elections, tomorrow. The Election Commission has announced May 5 as the big day for Karnataka State elections.Every political party has planned their strategies for the upcoming election, which will be counted on May 8.

A spokesperson for KJP said Yedyurappa will hold a press conference to an-nounce he will “visit every ta-luk” as a part of his election campaign.

Manjunatha, BJP Assis-tant Media Conveyor, said: “ We have planned district lev-el meetings where all MLA’s will be present and also new MLA’s will be there who are contesting for the first time.”

He added: “We have planned the huge Rath Yatra all over Karnataka from April 23 and we will cover each and every district of this state till April 4.

“Our declared chief minis-ter is Jagadish Shettar, what-

ever congress will say”. Shreekant Murthy, assis-

tant spokesperson, Congress, said: “We have been planning for this election for the last six months and we are not taking out any Rath Yatra rather will do something to curb the pov-erty In Karnataka.”

Y.S.V Datta , Janata Dal (Secular),said: “Our party is related with rural economy and we have to deal with the issues like irrigation and pov-erty so we have not released any manifesto for this recent election”.

When The Observer con-tacted Nanditha Haldipur a High Court lawyer, on the transparency of Electronic Voting Machines, she said, “In urban areas it is transpar-ent enough but in rural areas, if they train them how to use it, then it will be effective.

”The controversy over the machines was fueled further when Hari Prasad, a techno-crat, was arrested in connec-tion with the theft of an EVM in 2010 but charges were later dropped.

The transparency in the EVS is still a doubt.

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Protest over Air India flying animals to their deaths

BSY set to contest

By Hansa V

By Reshma Tarwani

March 20, 2013| The Daily Observer 03

By Kakoli Mukherjee

Brazen sale of fake certificates

FAMILIES in Okalipuram face an anxious wait to discover if they will be re-housed after city govern-ment workers demolished their homes.

Three houses collapsed on Monday morning and other homes adjoining the Vrishabhavathi drain devel-oped severe cracks during on-going construction work on the drain by the BBMP.

After the incident the BBMP claimed that the hous-es were illegal encroach-ments with weak foundations and residents say officials failed to address concerns for two days.

Many of these residents say they were relocated by BBMP from Swatantrapa-lya in 1973 to accommodate the building of a public toilet there.

They also have Aadhar cards and other supporting documents tied to their ad-dresses.

Mr.A.Nataraj received his Aadhar card six months back after completing all the nec-essary formalities. Accord-ing to the Aadhar card he is a resident of Okalipuram. It was only yesterday (Tuesday)

that the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) declared that the three de-molished homes were illegal encroachments.

A portion of Nataraj’s house has been demolished. Mr. Nataraj told the Observer that they had moved their children to the neighboring houses so that they could prepare for the ongoing ex-ams.

Mr.Selvaraj has a daugh-ter studying at the Gandhi Vidyashala and she has been using the footpath to prepare for her board exams.

Mr.Selvaraj said: “We

have been using make shift toilets and cooked our meals in the open air in the past two days.”

Workers started clearing the construction debris to re-construct the wall this morn-ing.

Meanwhile, Swami Kan-nan, driver, hasn’t gone to work in the last two days. Along with the help of the lo-cal residents,

Mr.Kannan has success-fully stopped the drainage water from seeping into the houses. The Chief Engineer of BBMP, Mr.Ananth Swamy, and the Public Relations Offi-

cer, Mr.S.S.Khandre, refused to comment on this issue.

The Gandhinagar MLA Dinesh Gundu Rao had earli-er visited the affected families and told them that the once the BBMP Commissioner ac-cepted the hakku patras (title deeds) conditions would sta-bilize.

Today the Janata Dal President, Mr.M.Anandan visited Okalipuram. Resi-dents spoke about their woes to him.

Mr.Anandan said: “The entire incident is very un-fortunate and these people need to be compensated for the damage.”

Though the residents of Okalipuram have tax receipts, endorsement letters, voter identification cards and Aad-har cards entitled to them on these addresses they did not have any substantial proof of ownership on this address.

Advocate Amitesh Bhat-tacharya said that the avail-able documents with the resi-dents are merely supporting documents and it wasn’t suf-ficient to show entitlement to the property.

Recent property tax slips and land ownership certifi-cates are more substantial proof of entitlement.

BBMP started clearing construction debris this morning

By Sneha Banerjee

Families left to rot

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FAKE certificate makers in the city brazenly advertise online, but authorities sit totally unaware of the situ-ation.

Websites such as: www. Quickr.com and www.adoos.in give instruction how to procure fake diploma, experience and other kinds of certificates in Bangalore.

Dr. BA Mahesh, Superin-tendent of Police, and Cyber Crime Branch, said: “This is unlawful and we are totally unaware of this trend. We can take action only if some-one lodges a complaint.”

When asked if there are any cyber laws in India

that address such issues, he said: “There are many sections of the Indian Penal Code that deals with such fake advertisements.”

Even officials of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Bangalore Police, who have busted many fake certificates rackets in the city, were not aware of this new channel of sell-ing fake certificates.

Ashokan, Assistant Com-missioner of Police, CCB, said: “These ads are illegal. I am surprised to see that so many ads selling fake certificates float online.”

Sites like www.gimpsy.com give the addresses of many websites includ-

ing www.diplomasandtran-scripts.com and www.idealstudios.com that offer fake diplomas, transcripts and birth certificates for “novelty” purposes only. Anyone looking for fake certificates can get them shipped to their homes.

When asked if these websites can sell fake cer-tificates by saying that they are not responsible if the users use those certificates for wrong purposes, Asho-kan said: “The word ‘novelty’ is meaningless. They are just trying to escape the law by saying such things. This is definitely punishable by law. The problem is that courts do not deal with the

Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, which covers offences related to cheating and dishonesty, seriously.”

Customer care of Quickr said: “We do not endorse such ads. We check their ads before putting them up. This one has es-caped from our notice.”

Spanshot of Quickr.com with the fake ads

The lack of any female doc-tors, even if a female inmate is uncomfortable referring to a male doctor, they don’t have a choice. The available doctors are in the hospital between 9:30am until 5:30pm while the nurse lives in staff quarters within the campus after hospital hours.

He said the sanctioned posts include one post for a psychiatrist and three for medical officers. Interesting-ly, the basement of the prison hospital is home to about 50 psychiatric patients. These patients are kept isolated and on medication yet there is no specialised doctor to at-tend to them.

He said: “The government is not bothered about pris-oners' health. I have myself made a lot of complaints and suggestions directly to mem-bers of the government but nothing is ever done. I am not saying give us the best but at least a good quality of food, accommodation and health is the responsibility of the government.”

There is no provision of general medical checkup of patients in the prison. Even though the jail manual states that doctors must check all patients once every 15 days, "it's not possible," says the doctor.

“We're not asking the government for the most ex-cellent facilities or CT scan machines which cost crores, but at least the basic facili-ties should improve like lab, doctors' strength, paramedi-cal staff and access to medi-cines.

“Five cases of TB were reported in January alone last year. Sometime later in the year, the situation was so bad that there were 10 TB patients admitted in the hos-pital at the same time.

“In the last five years, about 350 prisoners have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS,” said Dr. Kumar.

Death and disease...Contd from Page 1>>>

The Daily Observer| March 20, 2013 04

DEVARAJAN is a tailor who works at a small shop on Brigade Road.

He gets paid on daily ba-sis and is paid Rs.200 per month. He lives in Hosur Road and travels to Brigade Road everyday for work and spends between Rs35-40 on a daily basis.

There are no direct buses to his place. Hence he needs to switch between buses ev-ery day.

This clearly shows that Devranjan spends at least 17 percent of his monthly in-come on commuting to and fro from his workplace.

Devranjan is one amongst the many who face the wrath of expensive public transport in Bangalore.

Connectivity between buses and cost of bus pass-es have always hurt the lower income group in their

pockets.Shanti Mary, who works

as a cleaner on a contract basis on Brigade Road has been recently appointed to work in this locality.

She earns Rs.6000 a month and lives in Kalasi-palliya.

Unfortunately, she feels that she works close to a metro station, she cannot af-ford it. “Metro is for the rich, I will continue to switch two buses and travel to work.”

Similarly Lakshmi works for a house in Malleswaram and leaves home as early as 6am to make it to work by 9pm. Lakshmi lives in Peenya. Citizens of Banga-lore spend endless hours in commuting to work.

The cost of commuting has always hit the lower middle class who depend on buses for their work.

The Controller of West-ern Division of Bangalore

Metropolitan Transport Cor-poration (BMTC), Mr.S.R. Kalyankumar agreed that the cost of commuting is definitely a worrisome issue in Bangalore.

He said: “The cost of op-eration is very high in Banga-lore. We are the bulk intend-ers of petrol and hence we have to pay high taxes for maintaining petrol bunks.”

Mr. Kalyankumar also claimed that Bangalore was one of the very few metros that were running a profit-able transport institution.

Bangalore also had the tradition of disposing buses as scrap every four years. All this has accounted for the expensive transportation costs in the city.

Is there an escape?H. Murali heads the Nam-

ma Cycle plan in Bangalore. Murali and his team encour-aged cyclists to use the cy-

cle as their mode of commu-nication to work.

This had two incentives; it improved health and con-trolled the pollution levels in the city.

Murali told the Observer that he saw a lot of hope in the lower income groups of the city but failed to see an equal amount of response from the corporate crowd.

Murali believes that his endeavors would reap the necessary results.

On the contrary, Kalyan-kumar felt that the Banga-lore road infrastructure of Bangalore doesn’t promote the movement of cyclists.

He feels that travelling my cycle is too early to be a vision.

Is there a solution?Dr. M.A. Saleem, addi-

tional commissioner of po-lice (traffic) felt that the new daily pass schemes from the

metro rail and greater con-nectivity to Majestic and oth-er important points in the city could help the citizens man-age the cost of commuting.

Mr. Kalyankumar wasn’t able to give any specific solution. He felt that people should reside closer to their workplaces.

The lower income groups should enroll for bus pass-es.

People should be more aware of the topography of the city and learn to use the bus system more efficiently.

There are buses avail-able to the main points of the city for the benefit of the citizens.

As a result of this, one wonders if the gentleman who makes a living out of selling maps on Brigade Road and lives in Lingara-japuram should start looking out for an accommodation near his work place.

By Sneha Banerjee

RANSPORTTExpensive buses, expensive travel

Compared to other major cities in India, Bangalore has the most expensive public transport system.

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The Daily Observer| March 20, 2013 05

“The air-conditioned Vol-vo buses are only meant for the elites and not us,” says Shankar Rajaram.

The 40-year-old com-mutes daily by bus from Kumbalgudu to K.R.Market. He is a helper in the gro-cery shop at the city market. However he believes that the Volvo buses are meant for the rich upper classes.

A performance report re-leased by the road transport and highways awarded Ban-galore Metropolitan Trans-port Corporation as the second best service which provides transport facilities in India after Chennai.

Bangalore’s 4.8 million people depend almost sole-ly on buses as Bangalore has no other effective public transport which is economi-cal and connected to every corner of the city. But the f r e q u e n c y

of BMTC buses to remote placeslike Bidadi and Nela-mangala is appreciable but the qual-ity of buses is doubtful.

Most of the buses that travel on roads from K .R .Marke t or Majestic or Kengeri are ordinary buses and only two out of ten buses are Volvo. Shanta, 48, a professor at a PUC college, who often commutes from Majestic to Rajarajeshwari said, “You need to be lucky to get those

good buses. Not frequently will you get an opportunity to ride in a Volvobus.”

“There are only 800 Volvo buses out of 6443 buses in the city,” said t h e Te c h -n i c a l E n -g i -neer o f

BMTC, Nagaraja .Most of these Volvo

buses are de-ployed in the IT corridor as “the people is those areas demand it and are willing to travel, but in places like Bidadi and Nelamangala, people would always prefer ordinary bus-es over Vol-vos,” added Nagaraja.

O r d i n a r y buses are can

accommodate more people than Volvos. Therefore ordi-nary buses are more viable option for distant places like

Bidai and Nelamangala.The Managing Director,

Anjuman Parwez told in an interview to citizen matters

that almost 600 buses in the city are old and are due to be scrapped by the end of this July. These old buses are dif-ficult to maintain and go through several break-downs.The technical director of the BMTC, Baburao, blamed the traffic in the city for of-ten breakdowns in the city, “Bangalore has very bad traffic and also roads. After every sec-ond the drivers have to use clutch and break because of which the transmission fails and the bus goes through break downs.”

The shattering noise of the windows against the metal body of the bus and the loose fit-

tings of the old buses add up to the passengers’ head-ache.

As compared to the previ-ous years the break

d o w n s

h a v e reduced com-

paratively. In the year

2008, the breakdowns were as high as 2813 but last year the breakdown fell as low as 1535. From April 2012 till this month, there have been 1,849 break downs regis-tered in the city. Parshuram,

says he has been working as a

driver in BMTC for 10 years now, wiping the sweat off his brow with a handker-chief after his first round from Shantina-

gar. “Vol-vo buses are driver f r i e n d l y . The clutch

and gear are very smooth unlike those in the ordinary bus-es.”“But the mainte-

nance cost of Volvo buses is very high. If a glass of the or-dinary bus breaks, it can be fixed within Rs. 500 or 600.

By Nikita Malusare

“Volvo buses are only meant for the elites and not us”

“I haven’t got chance to drive Volvo buses. Hopefully if they in-crease the volvo fleet, I may get to drive it”.

- Parshuram, BMTC bus driver.

The Daily Observer| March 20, 2013 06

LEPROSY cases are rising again in Karnataka – eight years after the government announced India a leprosy free country.

According to statistics provided by the Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Department, 2975 new lep-rosy cases have been report-ed between April 2012 and February 2013, a rise of 872 cases on the previous year.

In urban Bangalore 237 severe leprosy cases were reported in 2012-2013 out of a total of 314 cases.

Leprosy attacks nerve endings leaving patients sus-ceptible to infection. That in turn leads to loss of fingers, hands, toes and feet.

Countries can state they have eliminated a disease or condition when there’s less than one case for every 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organisa-tion.

As a result of this ruling, funding to fight the disease has tailed off and cases are rising once again, campaign-ers have warned.

Muniamma, a resident of Indirapuram leprosy colony, suffering from severe leprosy, has not received her pension for the last three months as she can barely walk down to the nearest post office due to her afflicted feet.

Muniamma is one exam-ple, but there are thousands of people across Karnataka who could have been helped had they been tested earlier.

According to statistics provided by the Govern-ment Leprosy Hospital, they receive around 12-13 cases

every month. Dr. B.C. Vennu said: “It’s

a neglected disease nowa-days, people including the health workers are ignoring the fact that the cases might have come down but the dis-ease has not been completely wiped out from the country.

“The health officers should be more committed towards eradicating the disease, maintaining regular record of medicine stocks, spreading awareness, conducting fol-low-ups and keeping a con-tinuous track of the patients,

but they often fail to do so.”The Medical Surveillance

Officer Dr. Shivram admitted that since 2002 there are no health workers working ex-clusively for leprosy.

As soon as symptoms of deformation start appearing on their body, social ostraci-zation is the only way for lep-rosy patients.

The only solution left for them is to be absorbed in metropolitan cities and to beg to earn their livelihoods.

Father George, the di-rector of Sumanahalli Re-

habilitation Centre, working for leprosy affected patients, said: “In 2005 the central government declared leprosy has been eradicated from In-dia and health surveys, which were a primary way of detect-ing leprosy at an initial stage, came to a halt.”

At the rehabillitation cen-tre, he added: “With no more surveys, people failed to iden-tify leprosy at an initial stage, which is gradually leading to such a large number of se-vere cases of leprosy in this state.”

Leprosy on the rise again

SIX men were arrested in the city yesterday for the alleged murder of a man earlier this month.

Bangalore City Police say

they conducted a “planned operation” to net their targets in the Kalasipalya Police Sta-tion area.

The operation was super-vised by Joint Commissioner

of Police Pranav Mohanty and Assistant Police Com-missioner D C Rajappa.

Kumar,30, a construc-tion supervisor, was brutally murdered on March 9 at Fire-works Colony, Vinobhanagar, near Kalasipalya. Investiga-tions revealed that enmity between Kumar and the six arrested was the reason for murder.

The six arrested are Ravi, 20, Madan Kumar, 20, Vetriv-elu, 23, Kupparaju, 22, Raja, 22 and 24-year-old Ashok.

All of them are from Vinob-hanagar, according to police.

The murder stemmed from a gang rivalry between two groups, police claim.

Rowdies had attacked a man called Sundar of Vinob-hanagar and also attempted

to murder him with lethal weapons on March 8, police say. On March 9 the dead man Kumar had approached the rowdies to tell them he knew they were behind the earlier attack on Sundar.

Later that day Kumar was attacked by Ravi and his as-sociates and in a heated ex-change of words between Kumar and Ravi’s associates, Kumar was brutally mur-dered, according to charges laid by police.

The arrested were pro-duced before the magistrate and taken into custody for further interrogation.

The police claim they also recovered the murder weap-on from the arrested and the case has been registered at Kalasipalya Police Station.

Six arrested over murderObserverTeam

An IIJNM PublicatonEditor

Nikita M

Sub-editorRohan Premkumar

Page EditorsShreya Mukherjee

Urmi SenguptaPriyanka Roy

Deepu Aby Varghese

Special Correspondant Krishnaprasad S

Hansa V

Proof ReaderSneha Bannerjee

Aheli RaychaudrariKakoli Mukherjee

Satyajith G D

E-maileditor@iijnm.org

By Krittka Sengupta

By Krishnaprasad & HansaThe six accused of murder at the Police station

Hira Pawar, a leprosy sufferer

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“ I cannot walk down to collect my pension with deformed legs.”

-Muniamma, the pension-holder