His Adya Shraddha will be held on the 21 January, 2013 at Guwahati. He is survived by his wife, Manideepa and three sons Raghabendra, Manabendra and Jadabendra and daughter in-law Parul.

Ramendra Narayan Dutta Baruah (popularly known as Montu and RD) was born into a family of printers in Nalbari, Assam to Sahitya Ratna Harinarayan Dutta Baruah and Parbati Dutta Baruah on 12 Dec 1946. He did his schooling from St. Edmund’s School, Shillong from where he passed the Senior Cambridge examination in 1963 following which he graduated in Sociology with Political Science from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay in 1967 and also completed a post graduate diploma (Advanced) in Journalism from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay. He completed his Post-graduation in Anthropology from Guwahati University in 1969 and was the Assistant General Secretary of the Post Graduate Students Union for 1969-70.

He has been instrumental in changing the landscape of the printing industry in the north east. He joined Sri Guru Press as partner in-charge in 1967 and was spearheaded the publication of seminal Assamese weekly Saptahik Nilachal published from 1968 of which he was the Editor-in-Chief at the time of his demise.

He installed the first offset printing machine in North-East, the RO62 web-offset and introduced Photo-Typesetting (PTS) Alpha Comp in 1978. He printed the first multicolour job in the North East including manual colour separation, the Ashok Paper Mills calendar in 1979. He launched and published English Daily, The News Star through Seven Stars Publications in 1982, and introducing colour every day for the first time in a daily newspaper in India.

RN Dutta Baruah was general secretary of the North East Federation of Master Printers in 1972 and 1973, and stepped in as the president of the association from 1974 to 1986. He was president of All Assam Press Owners Association in 2000-02 and 2004-06; executive member since 1986 and advisor from 1988-2004 and 2006 onwards. He was also governing council member of the All India Federation of Master Printers since 1972, vice president (East) for 2004-05 and president in 2007-08.

He was deeply involved in various educational and socio-cultural endeavours and organisations in various capacities; including founding the Institute of Printing Technology run by the All Assam Press Owners’ Association, and Institute Of Mass Communication & Media run by the Media Trust, among several such initiatives.