By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 3, 2015 :

May Day had the best of celebration here as an exploited employee of Odisha’s premier daily ‘The Samaja’ Gagan Parida launched a milestone book on forgery, corruption and exploitation of workers in the major news daily.

Ironically, the founders of the oldest thriving Odia news paper were the most revered humanitarian leaders known as Panchasakha of Satyabadi, headed by Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das.

The book title as ‘Samaja in Maze of Forgery’ is a compilation of articles by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, a senior journalist.
The book has exposed how two former ministers of the State, one of who was the paper’s longest time editor, and being so, had bagged India’s third highest civilian honor – Padma Bhusana, had forged the Will of Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das to grab the ‘Samaja’ under cover of the Servants of the People Society (SoPS). Ever since, the ‘illegal’ occupiers of the renowned paper, have been exploiting the workers in blatant violation of industrial and labor laws.

In introducing the book, author Subhas Chandra Pattanayak alleged that two former education ministers – Lingaraj Mishra and Radhanath Rath – had forged Gopabandhu’s Will. The book further exposes, he said, how yet another editor of Samaja, Manorama Mahapatra, daughter of late Radhanath Rath, had also forged the signature of a sub-editor to deny him his legitimate rank and salaries.

The book exposes how hundreds of crores of rupees are swindled from the revenue of the Samaja by the Servants of the People Society, by using a forged Will of Gopabandhu and how the Registrar of Newspapers for India is keeping quiet over the allegation of ‘Save the Samaja Forum’, and how the District Judge office at Cuttack was used as a ‘breeding bed of forgery’ by the illegal occupiers of the Samaja.

The book, published by  Save the Samaja Forum (SSF) , is full of documentary evidences of the serious crimes committed by Radhanath Rath who was editor of the Samaja till his death and other two editors and members of the Servants of the People Society.

The book mentions how the workers are maltreated through unfair labor practices, without being regularized even after serving the major daily newspaper for more than 30 years, he said.

One such worker is Gagan Parida. He has been pushed into instant termination of his thirty years long continuous service after he tried to persuade the management to regularise his services to enable him avail benefits under the labor laws. Like him. About 20 persons who had been working everyday regularly for decades in hope of regularization of their services have been summarily dismissed as they wanted to be regularized.

that has published the book preferred to launch the book in the hands of Parida who has worked in the paper for the longest period without being regularized.