I HAVE DECIDED to resign as editor in chief.
The time has come for us at BTG to start handing the magazine over to a younger generation of devotees the young people born and raised in the Hare Krsna movement, and the disciples of Srila Prabhupada's disciples.
A first step in this is for me to get out of the way and make room for others to move up.
Now, therefore, our managing editor, Nagaraja Dasa, is taking over as editor in chief. Really, he has been doing the main editorial work for quite a long time. But he has not had full freedom and responsibility to do it, because even while traveling away from the office, I was the remote-control chief. So now the full editorial responsibility will be his.
A team of devotees will be working with Nagaraja on developing and implementing new editorial ideas.
A theme of high priority will be to bring younger devotees onto the BTG staff, involve them and train them, and gradually complete the transfer of responsibility from our own generation to the next.
Kalakantha Dasa, our circulation manager (who handles a lot more than circulation), will focus on recruiting and training new devotees to serve at BTG. He'll be looking for people both for editing and for design, and for circulation as well.
I will continue to be involved in BTG as a trustee of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. I will have a hand in major financial decisions and other matters of publishing. I will be on call as an editorial consultant. I also hope to be personally involved with the recruiting and training for BTG of younger devotees.
I expect to continue assisting our BTG office in India, formed about two years ago, as well as our new BTG circulation office in the UK.
Though serving as editor in chief is not a material engagement one needs to renounce, still it seems sensible, at a mature age, to retire and make way for others. One is advised by Vedic scriptures to retire by the age of fifty. At forty-nine, I think I am on schedule.
I hope you will all give your blessings and best wishes to me and your full support to our new editor in chief, Nagaraja Dasa.
Thank you very much. Hare Krsna.
Jayadvaita Swami