Kuldip Nayar-Shekhar Gupta

Nayar eats his words

"I hired many journalists but two of the recruits, Shekhar Gupta and Madhu Kishwar, became celebrities. Shekhar Gupta called me his ‘guru’ but showed no respect when he stopped my fortnightly column. By then he had become all in all in the Express, circumstances having helped him to occupy the position of editor-in-chief. He also became abnormally affluent as well as arrogant." These libelous comments were made by noted veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar about Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta in his autobiography titled, published by Roli Books with a price tag of Rs 495, Beyond The Lines - An Autobiography published a year ago. Nayar thought it was disrespectful of Gupta to have dropped his column and called him abnormally affluent and arrogant.

But now in the new edition of the book Nayar has eaten his words, with the publishers of the book declaring, " The new edition of Kuldip Nayar's widely popular autobiography, Beyond the Lines, now comes with several changes including his remarks relating to Shekhar Gupta, Editor, the Express Group, and his reference to a former president of Sikh Student's Union, both of which he retracted and regretted for at the launch. All subsequent editions of the book come with these changes." The Roli Books has put up this regret on its website on a page advertising the same book.