Bengaluru: T.R. Gopalakrishnan, former Editor-in-Charge of ‘The Week’ magazine, passed away in Bengaluru in the early hours today. He was 72. His wife, Geetha Srinivasan, predeceased him on Sept. 4, 2023. He is survived by his sister Malathi Ramachandran and brother, T.R. Ramachandran, a senior journalist who was with ‘The Tribune’ among other publications. Last rites will be held tomorrow (Nov. 16) at the Wilson Garden crematorium in Bengaluru around noon.

Popularly known as Gopal or TRG, he was with ‘The Week’ from 1983 until his retirement in February 2018. Of his 34 years at ‘The Week,’ he spent 29 at the helm, steering the magazine to the top spot as India’s largest-selling English news magazine.

Born and brought up in Delhi, TRG took a brief stab at engineering at the IIT, Kanpur, but switched to journalism in 1974. His first assignment was as Reporter-cum-Sub-Editor at ‘Motherland,’ a daily run by the then Jan Sangh Party. After ‘Motherland,’ he spent three years with the ‘Hindustan Times’ in Delhi before becoming the News Editor of ‘This Fortnight,’ a Delhi-based fortnightly. When former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh set up the Kisan Trust, Gopalakrishnan was appointed as the Executive Editor of the Trust’s magazine ‘Real India.’

He later moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) to cover showbiz. He was the Assistant Editor of ‘Super,’ a film magazine and News Editor of ‘Current,’ a tabloid newsweekly. After he retired from ‘The Week,’ he joined ‘Citizen Matters’ as a Consulting Editor.