Veteran scribe K Vikram Rao cremated
The mortal remains of the veteran journalist and president of the Indian Federation of Working Journalists, K Vikram Rao, were consigned to the flames with state honours at Bhainsakund Cremation Ground in Lucknow on Tuesday, a day after he passed away. He was 87.
Bihar's governor, Arif Mohammad Khan, dignitaries, politicians, state government officers, colleagues, family and friends paid their last respects to Rao before the cremation.
Earlier, Rao's body was placed at the UP Press Club for people to pay tributes where his wife, Sudha Rao, daughter Vinita Rao, and the younger son Vishwa Dev Rao were present.
Sudev Rao, the elder son of K Vikram Rao lit the funeral pyre at the cremation ground.
UP Working Journalists' Union president Haseeb Siddiqui, UP Press Club president Ravindra Kumar Singh, UP Working Journalists' Union's Lucknow Division president Shiv Sharan Singh, UP Accredited Journalists' Committee secretary Bharat Singh paid tributes on the behalf of various journalist organisations.
Apart from his long career as a journalist, columnist, K Vikram Rao had been a prominent voice for press freedom, better wages and working conditions for working journalists.
He had been the bureau chief of an English daily in nine different states and also worked in the South Asia bureau of an American media house. He wrote many books.
Rao had also served as a member of the Indian Press Council for six years. He had also been in five different jails in the country totalling 13 months during the Emergency in the country.
Among those who expressed condolences on Tuesday were UP Governor Anandiben Patel, Union ministers Pankaj Chaudhary, Jitin Prasada, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav, Madhya Pradesh deputy CM Rajendra Shukla, Madhya Pradesh BJP president VD Sharma, UP ministers Suresh Khanna, Nand Gopal Nandi and Nitin Agrawal.
Trade union leader Umashankar Mishra, Vidhan Parishad member Pawan Singh Chauhan, former minister Rajendra Chaudhary, Samajwadi Party state president Shyamlal Pal, Samajwadi Party backward cell coordinator Rajpal Kashyap, UP BJP media in-charge Manish Dixit, UP Kshatriya Samanvaya Samiti coordinator Pradeep Singh Babbu, Apna Dal spokesperson Sanjeev Singh Rathore, NCP leader Siraj Mehndi, Insram Ali, journalists Punya Prasun Joshi, Ram Dutt Tripathi, Hemant Sharma, Amitabh Agnihotri, Awadhesh Kumar, MLA Shalabh Mani Tripati, RLD leader Anil Dubey, Vidhan Parishad member Mahendra Singh, former union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, and BJP spokesperson SN Singh were also among those who paid their tributes.
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