Barun Sengupta

Son of Nirmalananda Sengupta and Ranibala Devi, Barun Sengupta was born in Barisal (in present-day Bangladesh). Sengupta, along with his family, moved to Kolkata before the partition of India in 1947 and rented a house near Baithakkhana Market in north-central Kolkata.

His education started in B.M. School, Barisal. Later he was admitted to Town School, Kolkata. After graduating in commerce from City College, Kolkata, he founded a periodical named Bhabikal which lasted a few issues. In 1957, he founded another weekly named Bartaman with the aid of Hemanta Kumar Bose, a popular leader of the political party, Forward Bloc. He joined Anandabazar Patrika in 1960 and became its first designated political correspondent in 1965. During the Emergency, he was sent to jail along with another reporter, Gour Kishore Ghosh.[1]

In 1984, he left Anandabazar Patrika to start his own journal and launched Bartaman, a daily, on 7 December that year. For its straightforward and intrepid style, the journal became extremely popular among the common Bengali readers. Later Sengupta launched two more periodicals - Saptahik Bartaman, a weekly and Sukhi Grihokon, a monthly and this time too it was a success. These two journals are now widely read in West Bengal.

He wrote several books on India's political situation–Pala Badaler Pala, Sab Chatitra Kalpanik, Bipak-i-stan, Andhakarer Antaraley and Netajir Antardhan Rahasya being some of them. One of his controversial book "Indira Ekadashi" was based on the 11-year tenure (1966-77) of Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister of India.

He died in a south Kolkata nursing home after a brief illness.

• Barun Sengupta Rachana Sangraha (Collected Works of Barun Sengupta in Bengali), Ananda Publishers Pvt Ltd, Kolkata - 700009

• News of Sengupta's Death and a short biography from The Telegraph -
• News of Sengupta's Death from Indian Express -
• Biography of Barun Sengupta from Yahoo News -