TRIBUTE

Sonia Gandhi Pays Homage to Scribes
People from all walks of life covering the entire political spectrum paid rich tributes to Shri Madhavrao Scindia.

Anju Sharma	Gopal Bishtt	Ranjan Jha	Sanjiv Sinha

NEW DELHI : Rich tributes were paid by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi to four journalists who died in a plane crash, along with former Union Minister Madhavrao Scindia at the AICC Headquarters on October 3.

At the condolence meeting, Mrs. Gandhi, said the four journalists might not have shared the party views but "we were accustomed to seeing them and they had become part of our extended Congress family". They all had brought credit to their profession, she said and offered her and party’s sympathies to the bereaved family.

Mrs. Gandhi recalled that she had once got an opportunity to exchange views with Sanjeev Sinha, Special Correspondent of Indian Express, during her tour on the train. She described him as dedicated journalist.

Referring to Anju Sharma, Special Correspondent of HT, she said her professionalism had placed her in a position which she held in the newspaper. She recalled that Ranjan Jha of Aaj Tak had such a "goodness of heart and a smiling face" that she became "a victim" once in the sense that despite her preoccupations she had to agree to his request for an interview for a newsbite considering the "genuiness" of request. Speaking of Gopal Bisht, cameraman of Aaj Tak, she said, she did not know much about him but he was a quiet person.

Goodbye Friends!

In order to put a thread through the eye of a needle, one has to twist the thread to a single point, if that is not done, it is indeed a difficult task to accomplish. Sometimes, indeed, the task seems so hard that one grows discouraged and wants to give up. Those are the very moments, however, when strength and fortitude are needed.

Lord Sri Krishna says in the Bhagvad Gita, ‘Do not permit yourself to be depressed! This mind which seems so unyielding and difficult to subdue, can be subdued through constant practice of dispassion and through discrimination.’ It is with this dispassion that today one sits down to write about four dear young friends whose untimely and tragic death brought gloom into the Congress party and its Media Department.

Anju Sharma of the HT perhaps represented the unspoken change that was taking place in political journalism in India. Her objectivity and focused pursuit of news had no peer to match. It will take a long time for the Congress Media Department to recover from the shock to believe that Anju Sharma is no more in our midst.

Ranjan Jha was to Aaj Tak what fish is to water and perhaps one of the most senior Electronic Media journalists covering the Congress Party. The diligence, maturity and impartiality of his reporting will be remembered for a long time. His networking with the Congress senior leadership was awesome. There was no activity worth knowing which Ranjan would not have scent of, every nuance, every detail of the Party was known to him. His last interview with the Congress president was an event that would long remain etched in memory.

Sanjiv Sinha’s life and times will remain a mystery to me personally. His quintessential relationship with the Congress party, aggressive reporting and commitment to his profession left no one in doubt about his journalistic abilities. His thirst for news was continuously reflected in the quantum of his reporting.

Gopal Bisht, the quiet, diligent man behind the camera made no song and dance on the pivotal role he played in recording the images of intransigence in political life and the documentation that spoke for itself through its images.

Goodbye friends, the Congress beat won’t be the same without you.

- Tom Vadakkan, Media Secretar