Senior journalist Mahadeva Prakash succumbs to COVID-19

Journalist and former media adviser to Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, Mahadeva Prakash, 65, succumbed to COVID-19 on Friday. He is survived by wife and daughter.

He kickstarted his journalism career as the editor of the now defunct Lokavani daily newspaper run by former Chief Mnister Veerendra Patil, at a very young age.

He later started multiple publications himself and was the editor of the monthly magazine

Ee Bhanuvara , when he died. He was also editor of

Kannada Nudi magazine of Kannada Sahitya Parishat and worked with P. Lankesh as well.

He was appointed media adviser to Mr. Yediyurappa in 2019 but he quit in November 2020.

Political history expert

Mr. Prakash was known to be an authority on the political history of the State, an expert on electoral analysis and he also successfully dabbled in psephology. His column ‘Horalu Nota’, contextualising present-day politics with respect to political history of modern India and Karnataka earned him repute. “He never changed a word of what his writers wrote, even though he did not agree with it many times.

He always said that was ‘patrika dharma’. In that sense he was a fine editor,” said N. Divakar, a columnist in Ee Bhanuvara.

CM mourns

The Chief Minister mourned his former media adviser, saying Mr. Prakash’s political analysis was ‘studied’ and often guiding. He also noted he was a good orator who became a television personality in recent years.