Veteran journalist Madhav Vittal Kamath died on Thursday morning at his native place Manipal in Karnataka. He was 94. Kamath who was the chairman of Prasar Bharati started his journalism with Mumbai’s respected daily, the Free Press Journal as a reporter in 1946 and later worked for its eveninger, Free Press Bulletin. When he was the Washington correspondent for The Times of India for over a decade he earned a lot of accolades and wrote on the Indo-US relations.
MV Kamath had been hospitalised for the past few days and breathed his last around 6:30 am on Thursday, said his nephew Jairam Kamath.Jairma Kamath said “He had been ailing for sometime due to old-age related problems and had been admitted to a hospital here (Manipal)...According to his last wishes...Not to keep his body for long, we shall perform the funeral rites Thursday itself.”
Madhav Vittal Kamath was born September 7, 1921 in Udupi, Karnataka. Awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2004, Kamath penned over 40 books, including ‘Gandhi - A Spiritual Journey’, ‘Reporter At large’, and co-authored ‘Narendra Modi - The Architect of a Modern State’ (2009).
Kamath joined the Times of India Group and was the editor of The Sunday Times between 1967-69. He was also the Times of India India’s Washington correspondent, and worked there for nearly 10 years, before returning in 1978 to serve as the editor of the erstwhile Illustrated Weekly of India news magazine till 1981.
During his media career, spanning over six decades, Kamath also served in New Delhi, Washington, Paris, Geneva, New York and other centres in various capacities.After his retirement in 1981, he opted to settle down in Mumbai and continued writing books and columns for various national and international publications, including his ‘alma mater’, the Free Press Journal, till a fortnight before his death.
Kamath was appointed as the chairman of Prasar Bharati, the autonomous public service broadcaster of India. He was the honorary president and director of Manipal Institute of Communications, and on the executive committee of MAHE, a deemed university.BJP, Karnataka Media Academy and host of media bodies have condoled the death of MV Kamath.