Veteran journalist and former consulting editor of The Times of India (ToI) Dilip Padgaonkar died at a private hospital in Pune on Friday afternoon, following a heart attack and a multi-organ failure.
Padgaonkar, who had been admitted to Pune’s Ruby Hall Clinic on November 18 following a heart attack, suffered multiple organ failure.
A diabetic, Padgaonkar had been put on dialysis for the past few days after both his kidneys stopped functioning. He suffered one more severe heart attack in the early hours of Friday and he breathed last at 12.30 pm. He was 72.
One of the long-serving serving editors of ToI, Padgaonkar was appointed by the Manmohan Singh Government in 2010 as one of the three members of a team of interlocutors to interact with all sections of people in Jammu & Kashmir and suggest ways to bring about peace in the valley State.
Condoling Padgaonkar’s death, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “Mr Dileep Padgaonkar was a leading public thinker whose contribution to journalism will always be remembered. Pained by his demise. RIP”.
Born on May 1, 1944, Padgaonkar graduated in political science from Fergusson College, Pune, obtained a diploma in direction and script-writing from the Institute of High Cinematographic Studies in France and received a doctoral degree in social sciences from the University of Paris(Sorbonne).
After a ten-year-stint with ToI, Padgaonkar joined UNESCO as its Asia-Pacific Information Officer in Bangkok. Two years later he was promoted as Deputy Director of Unesco’s Office of Public Information at its headquarters in Paris. He stayed with UNESCO till 1986.
Having returned to ToI, Padgaonkar was appointed its editor in 1988, a position he held the post for the next six years.
As an editor of ToI, Padgaonkar created a stir in the media and political circles in the country, by claiming that he held ‘the second most important job in the country’ after the Prime Minister. He held senior positions in the paper at various junctures until 2005.
He was also Editor of the Sharjah-based daily The Gulf Today. In 1994 he became Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Communications Associates (APCA), a multimedia organisation active in news and current affairs on TV and in print journalism. He founded Biblio: A Review Of Books and continued to be its editor till his death.
A crusader against communalism, Padgaonkar spoke and wrote passionately, eloquently against communalism, Hindu nationalism and terrorism among other tyhings. His views on these issues reflected in his books like When Bombay burned, a book he edited on the 1992-93 Mumbai riots and numerous essays and articles.
A film aficionado, Padgaonkar wrote a book on Italian cinema maestro Roberto Rossellini’s eventful sojourn in India titled Under her Spell (2008).