Madan Lal Talwar, General Secretary of the All India Newspaper Employees Federation, died this morning. He was ill for some time and died at his residence in the Press Apartments. He was 66 years old. Tributes and condolence messages kept pouring in throughout the day.
The AINEF Vice President and DUJ General Secretary S.K. Pande, AINEF Treasurer Roopchand, General Secretary of the Indian Express Employees Union and working committee member of AINEF C.S. Naidu were among the first to arrive at Talwar’s home.
Condolence messages were received from Subodh Bose, the Kolkata based President of the AINEF and other AINEF office bearers including Secretary G. Bhupathi of Chennai, Balgopal from Kerala, Anjaneyulu of the Andhra Pradesh Journalists Federation, Jacqui Park of the International Federation of Journalists, former IFJ Coordinators Sukumaran Muralidharan and Laxmi Murthy, Delhi State CPI-M Secretary Pushpender Grewal, Geeta Seshu of the Mumbai Patrakar Union, Madan Singh of the Indian Journalists Union, H.K. Sastri of PTI and P. Sreekumaran of India Press Agency.
Later in the day the cremation took place at Nigambodh Ghat with wreaths being placed by M.S. Yadav of the All Indian Confederation, the Delhi Union of Journalists President Sujata Madhok and General Secretary S.K.Pande and Treasurer Amit Prakash Singh. On behalf of AINEF Treasurer Roopchand, and working committee member C.S. Naidu placed a common wreath.
At the Nigambodh Ghat veteran AINEF leader Santosh Kumar, a PTI Union team headed by M.S. Yadav, office bearers of DUJ and various plant unions in Delhi and residents of Press Apartments were present. IJU founders like Suresh Akhouri and S.N. Sinha, former DUJ General Secretary Javed Faridi, former DUJ Secretary Joseph Malliakan, former president of the Press Association Devsagar Singh, veteran journalists Vinod Varshney, Parul Sharma, Anjali Deshpande, Neelam Gupta, V.J. Lokapally, K.P.Mohan, Ramu Sharma, Ashima Kaul Bhatia, Suresh Uniyal, Shrikant Sharma were among those present.
DUJ Condoles Talwar’s Death
The DUJ expresses profound grief and sorrow at the demise of Madan Lal Talwar, General Secretary of All Indian Newspapers Employees Federation and former Secretary of Delhi Union of Journalists on 11th February, 2014.
He was a prominent labour leader of the newspaper employees’ movement and a talented and enterprising journalist.
In the AINEF he got his leadership training under then CITU stalwarts S.Y. Kolhatkar and Madan Phadnis and in later years under AINEF Secretary General K.L. Kapoor. In his later years he schooled himself as a Wage Board Expert. He also played an active role in the UNI Global Union and conducted many training programmes and seminars in various parts of India and abroad.
Madan, as he was popularly called, during his time as secretary of DUJ was among the leaders who brought out a midnight DUJ newsletter on the eve of the Bihar Press Bill protest, stating that there would be no newspaper in the capital the next morning. That paper sold more than 10,000 copies in Delhi. Madan also led a historic strike in the Indian Express for which he was victimized. He coordinated many local struggles with T.M. Nagarajan, Arvind Upreti and C.S. Naidu.
For many years the Express Union formed the vanguard of struggle along with the Patriot Union, the Bennett Coleman Employees Union, the Hindustan Times Union and the PTI and UNI Unions.
S.K. Pande
General Secretary
