Uday Prakash

Uday Prakash (born 1 January 1952) is a Hindi poet, scholar, journalist, translator and short story writer from India. He has worked as administrator, editor, researcher, and TV director. He is the first author to return his Sahitya Akademi award on September 3, 2015 against the killing of M. M. Kalburgi that initiated a storm of national protests by writers, artists, scholars and intellectuals.

Personal life

Background Prakash was born on 1 January 1952, He was raised by and given primary education there by a teacher. He graduated in Science and obtained his master's degree in Hindi Literature, receiving a Gold Medal from Saugar University in 1974. He was imprisoned as a passionate communist party member. He later lost interest in political ideology. and its Imphal Center for Post Graduate Studies. In 1980 he left academia, to become Officer-on-Special-Duty with the Madhya Pradesh Department of Culture. At the same time, he was Controlling Officer of the Bhopal Rabindra Bhawan, and assistant editor of Poorvagraha, a journal of Hindi literary criticism. (He was later critical of the Hindi literary establishment including Ashok Vajpeyi, who he worked for at Poorvagraha.)

From 1982 to 1990, Prakash worked in New Delhi newspapers; first as a subeditor of the Hindi news weekly Dinmaan, and later as Assistant Editor of the Sunday Mail.

He has also made documentary films with Sahitya Akademi, like on Dharamvir Bharti. Prakash returned his Sahitya Akademi award in 2015, to protest the murder of rationalist academic M. M. Kalburgi.