Bhaskar BRP

Babu Rajendra Prasad Bhaskar was born in 1933 in Kayikkara near Thiruvanthapuram. His father A.K.Bhaskar  was a social activist and journalist. Mother is late Meenakshi. 

BRP as he is called, learned the tricks of the trade of journalism at an young age, from his father, who was the publisher of “Navabharatham”, which was media rich in talent. BRP could have easily become a doctor or engineer but opted for journalism, joining The Hindu in 1952 at the very young age of 19. He remained there till 1958. Then went on moving to different media organizations in different streams - Statesman(1959-63) Patriot(1963-66), UNI (1966-84) and Deccan Herald(1984-91), Asianet TV (1994-99). Since then he is active as social worker and as a writer. 

It was in 1958 that he was selected for a scholarship program of the government of India to undergo training in journalism in Philippines. Working in several media institutions of different stream-print, visual and wire- gave him rich experience. When relations with Pakistan remained cut off, as News Editor at UNI’s headquarters, he provided daily coverage of developments in that country during the crisis that led to the formation of Bangladesh, by interpreting monitored reports of Radio Pakistan. He reported from Kashmir during the period when Indira Gandhi brought Sheikh Abdullah back into power after a gap of more than two decades.

 He had worked in almost all major news centres covering the epoch making events of independent India. He has innumerable scoops, in depth political analytical and interpretative reports, insightful interviews to his credit, during his eventful career.

It was after retirement from the news agency that he learned the basics of visual media as one of the promoters of Asianet the first news channel in Malayalam. He along with Paul Zacharia and T. Venugopalan, the first media analytical program - in Malayalam visual media.

All along his career, he stood for the rights of the working journalists and always had a word for the oppressed and down trodden. His leaving several jobs should not be misunderstood as the early version of the modern trend of constant job jumping, but mostly he had left jobs when serious questions of ethics and principles arose.