Sadbodha Chandrike, one of the oldest literary monthly magazines in the country stopped its publication for want of funds. The Kannada magazine which was founded in 1908 in Agadi in Haveri district in north Karnataka has been the literary voice of the time and churned hundreds of young writers in Karnataka.
This literary masterpiece was founded and edited by Venkatesh Trivikrambhat Kulkarni, popularly called Galaganatha, has incubated several popular Kannada writers of our times. Kulkarni, who was a teacher, left his job and devoted full time for the magazine till his death in 1941.
Jnanpith laureates Masti Venkatesh Iyengar and VK Gokak, reputed authors Betageri Krishna Sharma, Shriranga, Ta Su Shamrao, NK Kulkarni, BP Kale and K Shamrao and many other Kannada writers published in this magazine.
The magazine which published for 108 years without a break has succumbed to television and dwindling readership. It had a readership of over 25,000 and came down to just few hundreds.
According to its publisher Gurumurthy Chakravarti they had shifted their base to Bengaluru from Agadi for a better prospects but it did not anyway help them. He said “ his appeal to the Government has also went un heeded and has to wind up just ten months back.”