kumar ketkar

Kumar Ketkar is currently the Chief Editor, Loksatta; a Marathi Daily of the Indian Express Group.

He has been the Editor-In-Chief, Lokmat and has served as the Chief Editor of the Maharashtra Times, The Times of India Group for over 7 years (1993-2001).

He has also contributed to the Indian and

Financial Express and the Times.

Seema NarendranRamnarain Ruia College 1

He was a Resident Editor for the Daily Observer, of the Ambani Group, Reliance, (1990-93) and a Staff Reporter and Special Correspondent for The Economic Times (1973-1990) and The Times of India Group.


During his 35 years of active journalism in English as well as Marathi media he has covered many international events like Changing USSR: Glasnost and Perestroika policies of Mikhail Gorbachev, Disintegration of Soviet Union (1991), Parliamentary election in United Kingdom (1987 and 1992), Integration of two Germanys (1991), Five US presidential elections- 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004, Hong Kong's integration with China (1997), Israel's fiftieth anniversary events (1998), Transformation and opening of China’s economy and the New Vietnam and its liberal policies.


He has the following awards to his credit: Padmashree. Government of India's Republic Day

award in 2001. CD Deshmukh award for excellent writing in

economics. Acharya Atre award for bold journalism Giants International award for covering

international events.

Rajiv Gandhi Award for excellence in Journalism.


Kumar Ketkar has been nominated by the Prime Minister on the National Integration Council.

He is also on the LIC Monitoring Committee Visiting faculty in the Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey, USA and a visiting lecturer in Mumbai and Pune University Media Departments.

He has authored seven Marathi books, on current politics, literature, and science and is a frequent commentator on current issues on various TV channels.


(1912 - 23 February, 2007 Delhi) was an Indian literary critic and journalist, who served as the editor of The Times of India. He wrote a column Life and Letters for several years for Hindustan Times and later The Times of India. He was India's most erudite newspaper editor.


He worked with The Hindustan Times in Delhi from 1934 to 1948. He joined The Times of India in 1950, as Assistant Editor. He later served as the editor from 1967 to 1978. After his retirement, he continued as a columnist for The Times of India. In 1994, moved his column to The Telegraph.


Bookshelves reached from floor to ceiling in every room, their contents neatly ordered, spanning several centuries of human thought and creativity.

He had original issues of The Paris Review, Criterion, and of defunct but once-great Indian literary magazines, vast collections of poetry and drama, and what appeared to be every important work ever published in the fields of history, criticism and the humanities.It was one of the best private libraries.


Sham Lal refers to the 11 September attack on World Trade Centre in New York in these words: 'It is ironical that while America was planning to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in building a missile defence system, it did not realize that any of the thousands of airliners flying over its cities every day could be turned into such a weapon by a suicidal maniac with a pilot's license and armed with nothing more lethal than a box cutter'.


There is a possibly apocryphal story about thieves who broke into his Delhi house and were disgusted that there was nothing but books from floor to ceiling in virtually every room!

Though he lost his eye-sight for reading books, yet he retained his enthusiasm for literature, men of letters and things of the mind, heart and soul till the last breath of his life.


kumar ketkar

Documents