Tarun Bharat also invested heavily in news gathering operations. Apart from widening its correspondents' network, the newspaper also equipped them with amenities like fax machines and cameras. Tarun Bharat also set up district-level bureaus and local offices all over the state as a strategy to source local content.
(Tarun Bharat then managed to steam-roll even smaller newspapers like Rashtramat which lost its readership base. Despite the backing of powerful industrialists in Goa, Rashtramat lost out despite its history. The newspaper, which swayed Goan thinkers during the Opinion Poll, failed to instill a sense of professionalism. Rashtramat is now trying to capture lost ground with hard hitting editorials by Sitaram Tengse, besides addition of supplements.)
Gomantak's failure in the face of Tarun Bharat's onslaught is an example of how a market leader can fail by sitting on its laurels. The Gomantak was originally started in Goa to advocate the state's merger with Maharashtra and furthering the cause of the Marathi language. Gomantak owed much of its success to its former editor, Madhav Gadkari. By the own admission, Gadkari gave Gomantak a Hindu face and supported the cause of Marathi through his speeches. Mr Gadkari's enthusiasm, foresight and hard work were instrumental in the growth of Gomantak. The newspaper's circulation shot up from 3000 copies per day to 15,000 copies per day and kept growing. His successor, Narayan Athavale, known for his inimitable style of writing, kept up Gadkari's legacy.
Madhav Gadkari has been always accused of fostering pro-Maharashtra sentiments, fueling the language controversy and creating disharmony between Goa's main Hindu and Catholic communities. Konkani protagonists continue to level these allegations and suspect that Gomantak is still aiming to merge Goa with Maharashtra. Gadkari admitted that he had come to Goa to campaign during 1967 elections. Though initially he was not the editor, he used to write regularly for Gomantak. In all Gadkari spent ten years in Goa.
Despite being labelled an outsider, the Marathi press in Goa owes its professionalism to Gadkari. He turned Gomantak into a platform for the Goan bahujan community. He started the Shiv Jayanti celebrations in Goa and, in his tenure of 10 years, he fought several intellectual and political battles.
To begin with Gadkari was very close to Goa's first chief minister, Dayanand Bandodkar. The relationship proved profitable, with Bandodkar leaking several stories to Gadkari that were published prominently in Gomantak. Later on, the two fell out, and Bandodkar stopped government advertisements to Gomantak. Bandodkar went on to accuse Gadkari and the Gomantak of vitiating communal harmony in Goa, in a complaint to the Press Council of India.
Gadkari believed that in the Vishal Gomantak (a 'greater Goa' state that included within Goa areas outside its current boundaries) he envisaged, the rift between Hindu and Catholic communities in Goa would be solved peacefully.
Gomantak has played a big role in the development of Marathi in Goa, by creating two generations of writers and journalists in the state. In contrast, the Konkani media failed to create an intellectual constituency in the state.
In Sunaparant
During my tenure as editor of Sunaparant, between 1989 and 1995, I strived to inject some amount of professionalism in the newspaper. Unfortunately, I did not receive the needed support from the stalwarts of the Konkani movement. They never wanted the Sunaparant to become a professionally-run publication. My efforts faced severe opposition and I personally went through acute stress.