VK Karthika's decade-long stint as HarperCollins' publisher ends; what comes next?

If 2015 was a year of several shake-ups for the Indian publishing industry — Chiki Sarkar moved away from Penguin India to launch her own imprint, Juggernaut — then 2016 too has now provided a fresh development. [caption id=“attachment_3070960” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] VK Karthika. Image from LinkedIn[/caption] VK Karthika, the longtime publisher of HarperCollins India stepped down from her post this week. The news was reported by Huffington Post on Tuesday, 25 October. Karthika had been the publisher and chief editor of HarperCollins since December 2006. Before this, she spent a decade at Penguin Books India as the executive editor. She was known for bringing on board writers like Aravind Adiga and graphic novelist Amruta Patil, among others. HarperCollins itself had a major change in its top management last year, when CEO PM Sukumar left the company. He was succeeded by Ananth Padmanabhan, whose previous position was as senior vice president at Penguin, where he had worked for 18 years. Firstpost reached out to HarperCollins for comment, and received this statement from Ananth Padmanabhan: “As publisher, Karthika has built invaluable relationships between HarperCollins and its authors, agents and publishers, not just in India but around the world as well. She has been a dear friend and colleague and will be missed.” VK Karthika told Firstpost: “All I can say is, I’ve had a glorious time here and am going to miss the many wonderful writers and colleagues I have had the good fortune to work with over the past 10 years.” As for whether or not she plans to launch her own imprint in the near future, Karthika merely said, “Who knows!”