The Fiji Times editor, Vijendra Kumar, retired after 22 years of service to the newspaper, 15 as the first local editor, according to an article published by The Fiji Times on July 31, 1991. The Fiji Times managing director Geoffrey Hussey announced on July 30 that Mosese Velia was to act as editor until the appointment of a new editor was announced. Velia was the assistant editor with The Fiji Times at the time.
Kumar, 55, was to leave Fiji on August 1 to join his family in Brisbane, Australia, where he intended to spend his retirement. Paying tribute to Kumar’s service with The Fiji Times , Mr Hussey said: “He has made an exceptional contribution to the growth and quality of the newspaper over many years. “He will be missed by the company’s management and by all his colleagues.
We wish him and his family well in their future in Australia.” Kumar joined The Fiji Times in 1969 as a reporter at its Lautoka bureau that covered the Western Division and was the first Indian to join. He rose to become the Western Division bureau manager and was later transferred to Suva.
He was appointed The Fiji Times ‘ first local editor in 1975 when he was 39 years old. In his 15 years as editor, Kumar turned The Fiji Times around from a rather staid, old-fashioned, overseas-oriented paper catering largely to expatriate tastes with a circulation of about 14,000 to what it was in 1991 — a colourful and dynamic daily — catering largely to the local readership. As he departed on th.
