Bandula Padma Kumara: Prominent voice for free media stilled

Veteran media personality Bandula Padma Kumara passed away earlier this week after a brief illness. He had a stellar career that ranged from a film critic to a newspaper editor, a chairman of a leading publishing house, to an anchorman and author.

He was 71.

Mr. Padma Kumara began his journalism as a film critic soon after leaving school and later edited a cinema magazine for Sumathi Publications. Among his many friends in the film industry was the late actor Vijaya Kumaratunga with whom he maintained a close personal bond. When the publishers launched a mainstream daily newspaper, Lakbima, he became the automatic choice to be its editor.

The newspaper was launched in the midst of high voltage political activity in the country with the independent media in the eye of a storm with an increasingly autocratic ruling party. Within only a few months in office, then President Chandrika Kumaratunga who had pledged to restore media freedom reneged and slapped criminal defamation cases against a string of editors and publishers, including

Mr. Padma Kumara.

His case against President Kumaratunga was heard in the Colombo High Court where he was acquitted by the trial judge Shiranee Tillakawardene who was deprived of her own promotion as a result, but later went on to sit on the Supreme Court. During this period, The Editors' Guild of Sri Lanka was formed and Mr. Padma Kumara was one of the architects of its creation, a founder member and later secretary of the Guild.

Mr. Padma Kumara was also a frontline member of the Free Media Movement (FMM) and played a pivotal role in combining the efforts of the Editors' Guild and the FMM in strenuously campaigning for the abolition of criminal defamation laws. The campaign successfully drummed up local and international support and Parliament unanimously repealed the laws in 2002 with President Kumaratunga still in office.

As secretary of The Editors Guild, he was also Chairman of the organising committee of the Journalism Awards for Excellence programme which has continued unbroken since 1999, recognising professionalism in the print media and rewarding excellence, while honouring veteran journalists and offering scholarships to young journalists over the years. From editing the Lakbima, Mr. Padma Kumara went into management and was first made Editorial Director at Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd., (ANCL - Lake House) in the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government of 2001-2004 and later as Chairman of ANCL in the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government (2005-2010).

He later moved into television, launching the country's first Morning News programme for Swarnavahini and authored several political novels.

His funeral took place last Thursday in Colombo.