- On behalf of the IJU, president BR Prajapati and secretary-general G Prabhakarn had sent their heartfelt condolences to his daughter and other members of the bereaved family.
NE NEWS SERVICE
NEWDELHI, AUG 9
The Indian Journalists Union (IJU), the premier organization of media persons in the country, deeply mourned the sad demise of veteran journalist and writer Berlin Kunjananthan Nair (97) at Kannur in Kerala on Monday.
On behalf of the IJU, president BR Prajapati and secretary-general G Prabhakarn had sent their heartfelt condolences to his daughter and other members of the bereaved family.
Nair was a long time Journalist in Delhi, Berlin and Europe. He worked as the European Correspondent of “Blitz” from 1975 to 1982. He also worked as the Correspondent of NEW AGE, the central organ of Communist Party of India (CPI) in East Germany for many years.
He was the Political Secretary to Marxist ideologue and the first Communist Chief Minister of Kerala EMS Namboodiripad. He had written many books and articles on the Communist movement in the country as he was closely associated with it from the age of 12 years. In 1943 he attended the first Congress of CPI in Mumbai as a representative of Balasangham. After his return from Germany he was associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). But later he became a stringent critic of the then party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan (present Chief Minister) in the peak period of faction feud in the Kerala CPI (M).
He firmly stood with former Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, the arch rival of Pinarayi Vijayan in CPI (M). Thus Nair was expelled from the CPI (M) in 2005. But on his last days he showered praises on Pinarayi Vijayan and expressed his wish to meet him after Nair’s return to the party in 2015. He had very cordial relations with some of us and the former leaders of IJU.
