The editor-in-chief of the trust-run newspaper The Tribune, Harish Khare, resigned from his post on Thursday, 15 March.
According to The Print, Khare had received his appointment for the company in April 2015, and had a three-year contract, which was expected to carry on till May, 2018.
The report says that Khare had made the announcement regarding his resignation on the Thursday morning meeting with the senior members of The Tribune’s staff. In his place, K V Prasad, who heads the Delhi bureau of The Tribune, is expected to take over as officiating editor.
Before joining The Tribune as its editor-in-chief, Khare had worked as a journalist in publications such as The Times of India, Hindustan Times and The Hindu. Along with this, an article by The Tribune mentions that he had also forayed into the realm of political analysis, academic research and public speaking.
Khare had also served as the Media Advisor to former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, from the period between June 2009 and January 2012.
With a PhD degree from Yale University, Khare had recently published a book on the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, labelled “How Modi Won It — Notes From the 2014 Election”, the report adds.
Earlier this year, The Tribune, under Khare’s leadership had made news headlights, when it published an exposé on Aadhaar, saying that anonymous sellers were using WhatsApp to provide access to the details of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar holders, Scroll reports.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had denied these claims and filed an FIR, which named both the reporter and the newspaper, the report adds.
During Khare’s time as the editor-in-chief, The Tribune, on 29 October 2017 was also asked to issue an apology to the former Punjab revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia, for having published two reports about his alleged links with drug lords, reports The Print.
Khare had even offered to resign from his post to protest against the apology, which he believed was being forced on him. However, on being faced with a defamation charge by Majithia, The Tribune had published an apology on its front page.
(With inputs from The Print, Scroll and The Tribune)
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