At a hybrid felicitation organised by the Vishwa Hindi Sahitya Parishad to honour Harendra Pratap Singh — who retired from the Government of India as Joint Director after 26 years, 4 months and 22 days of service — former Lok Sabha Director and noted writer Dr. Ranbir Kumar remarked that retirement would only widen the space for Mr. Pratap’s creative engagement with public life.

Joining online from Myanmar, poet and author Dr. Ashish Kandhway, Director of the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, said the current media climate — crowded with partisanship and performative commentary — needs voices like Harendra Pratap’s, grounded in ethics and institutional memory.

Several scholars and journalists, among them Gopal Prasad, media analyst Neeraj Kumar Singh, Adhunik Sahitya Managing Editor Mamata Goenka, Hindi patron Abhishek Vishwakarma, Rinku Singh and special correspondent Neelanjan Banerjee, extended greetings and underlined Mr. Pratap’s wide-ranging contribution to journalism, literature and public service.

Marking what he called the start of his “fifth innings” in journalism, colleagues assembled at the Parishad’s Shalimar Bagh office recalled his steady presence across newsrooms and government media platforms since 1979. For nearly five decades, he has written, edited and produced for print, radio, television and now digital media.

Beginning his career in Bhagalpur in 1979, Mr. Pratap worked with Navbharat Times, All India Radio, Doordarshan and later with the Ministry of MSME’s bilingual monthly Laghu Udyog Samachar and ICCR’s literary journal Gagananchal. He led Laghu Udyog Samachar as Chief Editor and served as Guest Editor of Gagananchal.

Selected through the UPSC in 1999, he joined the Government of India and retired on 31 October this year. His colleagues at Kartavya Bhawan and the Office of the Development Commissioner (MSME), Nirman Bhawan, accorded him a formal farewell. Officers of the Indian Enterprise Development Service also bid him farewell under the leadership of Joint Director R.K. Parmar.

Through these decades — whether in the field, in editorial leadership or in government service — Harendra Pratap retained wide respect within the profession. He served as General Secretary of the Bihar Working Journalists’ Association in 1992 and as National President of the IEDS Cadre Association in 2024–25.

His long, steady career is a reminder of what journalism can still stand for: diligence, institutional integrity and a refusal to let noise drown out the basics.

Special Report Manjari