Thuglak magazine's editor Cho Ramaswamy passes away at 82

Ramaswamy was suffering from a respiratory problem and was admitted to Chennai's Apollo hospital for treatment

Journalist Cho Ramaswamy, who was also a good friend of the deceased Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, passed away in Chennai's Apollo hospital on an early Wednesday morning.

Ramaswamy was suffering from a respiratory problem and was admitted to the same hospital as Jayalalitha, who was declared dead on December 5 at 11:30 pm after she suffered from a cardiac arrest.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the death of the eminent personality, saying that he was pained by the demise of the 82-year-old political commentator, who passed away at around 4:00 am on Wednesday.

In a tweet, Modi said:

A former Rajya Sabha MP, Cho was the first person to moot the idea that Modi should be the prime ministerial candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 General elections.

A multi-faceted personality Ramaswamy was also a law graduate, besides being a playwright and a stage actor. He has also directed  and written screenplays for several movies.

He has written, directed and acted in over 20 Tamil plays which have been performed over 5,000 times.  

Ramaswamy has, in fact, acted in 180 movies, written scripts for 14 others and directed four films. As an actor, he has shared the screen with M G Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, Jayalalithaa, Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth, among others.

On the small screen Ramaswamy has written, acted and directed several serials in Tamil, besides writing novels.