Good Morning India was born with The DayAfter, a column which was conceived to identify positive achievements of India and Indians of whom one could feel proud and happy. Indian writers, in the name of investigative journalism, had been raucously belligerent against men and women in power, with or without justification. The DayAfter, while lagging behind none to expose the frauds, faults and follies in all walks of life, however, remained distinct in its approach in that it always sought to rise above petty political affiliations and misplaced loyalties. It revelled in the positive achievements of simple and common Indians. That was the purpose of this column.

Like the name The DayAfter, chosen by Sunil Dang and his band of young people who launched this unusual magazine in 1985, the title of this column, Good Morning India, was also decided after considerable discussion and deliberation. I was very much influenced by the morning radio show Good Morning America, which fascinated me during my long stay in the United States of America and Canada in 1975. That news and popular music based show brought to you, first thing in the morning, positive radio reports about the United States. When I returned, I tried to broach the idea with my friends in All India Radio, but since it was a set-up strictly controlled by the Government, a euphemism for the bureaucracy which was always more loyal than its masters, it was not accepted. I waited for a decade and when I suggested it in 1985 to Sunil, we discussed, deliberated and agreed.

Initially, the column appeared under my pseudonym, Kumar Bhartendu. For technical reasons I could not use my name then for a regular column because I was still working in a fairly senior position with the Times of India. In fact, I and my colleagues in the Times reporting desk were so fascinated by the touching self-confidence and enthusiasm of Sunil Dang, then in his 25th year, when he began to think of The DayAfter, that we decided to stand behind him. The late Subhash Kirpekar was among those who stood by Sunil till his last day. There were others like Ravi Bhatia, Mohammad Shamim, Janak Singh and I, who are still around and except for Ravi, who is the Resident Editor of the Tribune in New Delhi, are regular contributors to The DayAfter, now in its triumphant birthday season, 18 years later. I recall how I discovered Sunil and he found me. I used to see a smiling young man hovering around the office of the Janata Party President, Chandra Shekhar. I had also seen him hovering around Piloo Modi. Later, I saw him around with Rajiv Gandhi, moving almost like a shadow, one of his computer kids who shared a love for photography with Rajiv. Some of the very eye-catching photographs which appeared in The DayAfter in the early issues were taken by Sunil Dang. In fact, I had initially agreed to write for The DayAfter on the condition that for reports and features done by me, the photographs would be taken by Sunil. It worked for quite some time. Then, there were times that we went our different ways and then came back together. Over the years, I came to understand Sunil, with his all consuming ambition in the media field, which made him the youngest ever member of the executive of the Indian Newspaper Society and a Member of the Press Council of India, besides several other elective and honorary positions in the national and international media.