Martin Prasad Vengadesan

Martin Vengadesan is a Malaysian writer and associate editor at news portal Malaysiakini.
The son of former diplomat Ambassador R Vengadesan, he was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1973 and grew up in nine countries across four continents.
He returned to Malaysia to become an activist, journalist, musician and author, associated with Malaysia’s Reformasi movement that led to the toppling of the country’s decades-long one party rule.
==Journalist==
Vengadesan was born in Finland and also grew up in the USSR, Japan, Laos, Belgium, Thailand, Mali, Senegal and the USA. Upon returning to Malaysia in 1993, he attempted to pursue a career as a musician. Eventually, he joined The Star in 1996 as a music journalist. He worked at The Star from 1996 to 2018 and specialised in historical and research-based articles on music and politics.
As a journalist and editor he was involved in highlighting police brutality and custodial deaths, press freedom suppression, workers' rights, Orang Asli issues, decriminalising medical marijuana and opposing the death penalty. Throughout his career, he also wrote against the race-based political parties that dominated Malaysia, and called for needs-based affirmative action and an end to the first-past-the-post political system.
He was voted Malaysia’s most popular male columnist by Monsieur magazine in 1997, and was editor of Star i-pad as it won a gold medal in tablet publishing at the Asian Digital Media Awards 2011, which was awarded by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
Vengadesan also helmed the Star Online as news editor when it won bronze for best newspaper website at the Asian Digital Media awards in 2013. He served as web editor during the 2013 and 2018 general elections as well as the disappearance of the MH370 plane in March 2014 and the shooting of the MH17 plane in July 2014.
In 2018, he represented Malaysia at the World Editors Roundtable held in Brussels, Belgium and cautioned against the possible misuse of fake news legislation. https://asef.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ASEFERT9-Participant-Bios.pdf He argued that the government of Najib Abdul Razak in Malaysia has passed the law to help clamp down on exposure of the 1MDB corruption scandal.
In 2022, his multimedia story about the role of police brutality in custodial deaths called Death Behind Bars bagged a silver medal in the Excellence in Multimedia Journalism category at the Malaysian Press Institute awards. In 2023, he won the Best Columnist/Feature Writing Editor's category at the Malaysian Press Institute awards.
==Activism==
Vengadesan also served as a trade union official from 1998 to 2008, eventually becoming general treasurer of the National Union of Journalists.
A socialist, he joined Parti Rakyat Malaysia in 1995, and was general secretary of its Youth Wing at the time of its merger with Parti Keadilan Nasional, during which he helped to write the new party's constitution. He specifically penned a clause calling for the replacement of race-based affirmative action with needs-based benefits.
He was briefly a vice-president of the Youth Wing of the new entity Parti Keadilan Rakyat from 2003 to 2004.
==Author==
He is also co-author of the best-selling true crime book Malaysian Murders & Mysteries with fellow journalist Andrew Sagayam which was published in November, 2019. Featuring stories on 42 of Malaysia’s most famous crimes, the book topped non-fiction sales charts and is now in its sixth print. Crimes that shook the nation: https://www.malaysiakini.com/read4free/499466/WFah8GzEt#crimes-that-shook-the-nation-a-gruesome-trip-down-memory-lane
Vengadesan’s second book was the absurdist dystopian science fiction novel Malaya 2057: A Thousand Moons Have Passed which was published in December, 2021.A departure from his non-fiction literary works, it was an allegorical tale articulating his socialist, secular humanist view of the world.
He published his third book 101 Albums You Need To Hear Before I Die in May, 2023. It draws on his career as a music journalist featuring interviews/anecdotes with B.B. King, Carlos Santana, Phil Collins, Ginger Baker, Ravi Shankar and more. 
==Musician==
As a musician, Vengadesan recorded five albums in the folk-rock, psychedelic rock and progressive rock genres. Lyrically, the subject matter ranges from history to philosophy, religion to left wing politics.
The first, entitled Spinning In Infinity, was with the group Samarkand with whom he performed at the large-scale rock festival Rock The World in March 2000. Its attendant single Thirty Pieces Of Silver was a top 10 hit on the Hitz FM charts in 2002.
The other four albums were with his recording project The Stalemate Factor.
Based on a chess theme, the albums are entitled The Queen’s Gambit (2018), The Bishop’s Sacrifice (2019), The Knight’s Flight (2020) and The Rook’s Siege (2023). 
==Personal life==
A father of three children, Elesh Sebastien, Ekath Fidel and I-Shan Esther Christie, Vengadesan is divorced.
==Bibliography==
Malaysian Murders and Mysteries (with Andrew Sagayam) (2019) ISBN 9789814868556
Malaya 2057: A Thousand Moons Have Passed (2021) ISBN 9789672438144
101 Albums You Need To Hear Before I Die (2023) ISBN 9789670042640
Category:1973 births
Category:People from Helsinki
Category:Malaysian writers
Category:Editors