M. P. Prabhakaran

Most of his working life, M. P. Prabhakaran straddled two professions, journalism and teaching. After completing his bachelor’s degree in science at the University of Kerala, India, he worked for a year as a high school teacher in his native village in Kerala. Then he moved to Bombay (now Mumbai), where he earned two post-graduate diplomas from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan: Diploma in Advertising and Public Relations; and Diploma in Journalism.

Prabhakaran started his career in journalism, in 1969, as a cub reporter on Current, a weekly newspaper (now defunct) published from Bombay. He then moved on, as a sub-editor, to March of the Nation, another Bombay-based English weekly (which is also defunct now); and then to Free Press Journal, one of India’s leading English dailies.

After immigrating to the U.S. in 1975, he worked as the editor of The Voice of India, a monthly; and, after the monthly folded in 1978, of South Asia Newsspecial, a news and feature syndicate.

Side by side with his journalistic work, he also pursued a Ph.D. in Political Science, at The New School for Social Research, New York. After completing the Ph.D., in 1988, he taught for several years as an adjunct professor of political science, at the City University of New York.

Since 2001, Prabhakaran has been traveling extensively and posting his travel experience on The East-West Inquirer, an online monthly he started that year. The monthly, published at www.eastwestinquirer.com, also carries his social and political commentaries.

Prabhakaran has authored three other books: An Indian Goes Around the World – I: Capital-ism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum; Letters on India The New York Times Did Not Publish, which is a collection of letters he sent to The Times over a period of three decades; and The Historical Origin of India’s Underdevelopment: A World-System Perspective, which is an expanded version of his doctoral dissertation.