Editor of Express News Service Kuldip Nayar quits

Goenka: Setting the dominoes rolling"I've written against supersession all my life. How can I put up with my own supersession now?" With these words, Kuldip Nayar, 56, the burly newshound, veteran of many scoops, and editor of Express News Service, the news network of theIndian Expresschain, bowed out of office last fortnight.Nayar's exit was part of the domino effect the ageing patriarch of the Express empire, Ramnath Goenka, 78, invited when he offered the coveted chief editorship of the daily, published from 10 centres, to S. Nihal Singh, 51, the suave former editor of The Statesman and India Today columnist for the past 15 months. Also to leave with Nayar was Ajit Bhattacharjee, 54, the paper's diminutive, grey-haired editor. Singh replaces with effect from April 1. S. Mulgaokar, editor-in-chief since 1977, left because of poor health.However, Mulgaokar will continue his association with the paper as an 'advisor'. Earlier, during the Emergency, Mulgaokar was rudely asked to retire by the Express board of directors which had been forcibly packed by Vidya Charan Shukla, the erstwhile information minister, with his hatchet-men: V.K. Narasimhan, who replaced Mulgaokar, was unceremoniously removed as soon as Goenka got back control of the paper at the end of the Congress rule. His name disappeared from the print-line overnight, and he was informed of the change later.Nayar (left) and Bhattacharjee: Bidding farewellImproper Appointment: Singh's appointment as editor-in-chief, insiders felt, was a veiled quit-order to Nayar and Bhattacharjee, especially the latter, who had always officiated as editor-in-chief during Mulgaokar's long and frequent absences. Both feel that Singh is junior to them "in years as well as in the profession". Objects Bhattacharjee: "I was not consulted". Adds Nayar in disgust: "It was an improper appointment."Evidently Goenka thought otherwise. A month earlier, he forced Dom Moraes, the editor of the paper's Sunday magazine, Sunday Standard, to resign. Moraes, a poet, had reportedly taken too many licences, more financial than poetic, and his tour expenses were running up to staggering amounts which, Goenka felt, was not justified in terms of his output.While Moraes was nursing his hurt ego by giving sentimental interviews to gossip magazines, another colleague, Prem Shankar Jha, quit the editorship of Financial Express to rejoin The Times of India, the paper where he was assistant editor before joining the Economic Times briefly as its deputy editor in 1979. At the Financial Express, where he spent only one year, Jha found that his plans to improve the paper - and the expense involved - failed to find favour with Goenka. Jha is being replaced by Editor N.S. Jagannathan, who is retiring as assistant editor of the Statesman.In the last of the changes that have rocked the Express group was a summary order at the end of last month to Bombay Resident Editor Daryl D'Monte to shift to Ahmedabad. It is believed than D'Monte's fault was to give prominent front page coverage to the launching of the city's latest news venture, The Daily, which may eat into the Express' own circulation.Mulgaokar (left) and Singh: The old and the newGoenka, unperturbed by the high turnover of his editors, has got busy streamlining his empire, now reeling under an additional financial burden of Rs 3.6 crore following the new wage agreement with employees and the new tax on imported newsprint. In addition to reducing the number of executive posts, he cut off extra fat by dismissing most of his stringers even before the Wage Board award was announced.Bidding Goodbye: "I've not asked anyone to go, not even Dom (Moraes). But I've a right to choose my own team," reasoned Goenka. To clean the dust of controversy out of some of the top level changes, he issued a notice on the front page of Indian Express last fortnight, expressing gratitude to Nayar and Bhattacharjee for their services and regretting that they were going away. "It was almost like bidding goodbye after a social party," laughed Nayar.Behind the sarcasm, however, it was clear that Goenka had accomplished at one stroke a neat amputation, shearing the hydra-headed Express group of unnecessary brass. At its peak, before Mulgaokar's resignation, the Delhi office of the Indian Express boasted no fewer than five editors. After the change, three will remain - and local wags are debating if Goenka has finally sheathed his machette.Heads were rolling in other publications too, turning editorial chairs into the most musical of our times. Shobha Kilachand, the model-turned-editor who made the fledgling Society magazine as pleasing to the eyes as her own face, resigned suddenly last month. While rumours abound about Kilachand's wealthy family backing her to launch another publication, Nari Hira, the go-getting Sindhi proprietor of Society and Stardust, engaged Leela Naidu, Moraes' actress wife, to edit Society. For Naidu, it could not have been timelier, because Goenka had sacked her as advertisement executive in Express together with her husband as a part of a packaged firing deal.About the same time, the Bombay-based Jaico publishers decided to bring out a new Sunday paper for which they engaged Vinod Mehta, the long-maned, bespectacled editor of Debonair, the desi 'Playboy' which alternates pin-up photographs with strings of irreverent wisecracks.Headless: Together with Debonair, the other magazine currently going headless is Business India, the paper that established itself as an intelligent house magazine of the board room bosses. Its original managing editor, Dilip Thakore, left the paper last year to edit Business World, launched by the Calcutta-based Ananda Bazar house this month. Deepak Raja, who joined as editor of Business India, resigned recently amid reports that he had differences of opinion with publisher Ashok Advani. Coincidentally Vir Sanghvi, the managing editor of Bombay, the city magazine which is part of the India Today group, is leaving at the end of the month on a foreign scholarship. Talk about who is to replace him is also keeping the media grapevine buzzing.However, the centenarian Illustrated Weekly of India was also slated to go on an editor-hunt but for a reported last-minute decision to allow a year's extension to M.V. Kamath, the present editor. Kamath, who was once described by Khushwant Singh, the magazine's former chief, as a "faceless editor", has doggedly maintained the conservative, old-world look of what is described as India's only "family magazine".Job switch-overs were not confined to the top level alone. Last month, the irrepressible Rusi Karanjia, editor of Blitz, scored a pre-publication 'coup' for his new daily publication, The Daily, by seducing half a dozen young reporters of Indian Express at more than twice their salaries. For the profession, the going was never quite as good. Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 23, 2013 13:28 IST--- ENDS ---

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Editor of Express News Service Kuldip Nayar quits

V.K. Narasimhan, who replaced Mulgaokar, was unceremoniously removed as soon as Goenka got back control of the paper at the end of the Congress rule. His name disappeared from the print-line overnight, and he was informed of the change later.

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