Coming from a family with limited means, Talwalkar graduated from the university of Mumbai while doing odd jobs at the same time to pay for his fees.
[1] He also established a record as the longest serving editor in Bennett Coleman and Co. which owns the Times of India Group.
[5] He believed that the pursuit of knowledge and science, public service and moral foundation were the key to achieving greatness for a national.
admiringly remarked that Talwalkar had a felicity of pen, while poet G. D. Madgulkar used to call him "DnyanMurti" and "DnyanGunSagar".
He had the greatest influence over the literary, political, educational, social, cultural and intellectual fabric of post-independence Maharashtra over fifty years.
Poet Kusumagraj noted that Talwalkar was doing a great public service by educating the masses through his newspaper and setting an example in excellence, promoting good reading, writing and diverse and original ideas.
His hard-hitting editorials were feared but respected by the politicians and people in powerful places; and immensely admired by the masses and the scholars.
He set the tone of discussion in Maharashtra and threw light on the plight of the land-less labour, famine conditions, dams, agriculture, banking, economic reforms, refugee problem and problems facing the universities, need to abolish superstition, need for social justice for the downtrodden and many important issues.
To him goes a large share of credit for nourishing Maharashtrians' moral universe and keeping politicians on a tight leash.
[citation needed] Though proud of his mother-tongue, Marathi, Talwalkar thought that his readers should know the best literature in various languages.
On his retirement in 1996, Talwalkar and his wife Shakuntala settled with their daughters in the United States, but continued to write critical articles and essays in Marathi and English on world politics, economics, history, social issues and books.
He donated his precious collection of 5000 books to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, where they are placed in a special memorial hall named after him on his first birth anniversary in 2017.
Many of Talwalkar's books are on the leaders of India's freedom movement : Justice Ranade, Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
The Tribune's review of Gopal Krishna Gokhale: Life and Times praises Talwalkar as "a versatile journalist", and describes the book as a "comprehensive study" with a "lucid and straightforward" narrative.
This new book entitled Gopal Krishna Gokhale:Gandhi's Political Guru was published by the Pentagon Press.
[11] Talwalkar's book Bharat Ani Jag[12] is a scholarly analysis of India's foreign policy and economic and political situation in the post-independence era (i.e. since 1947).
He always wrote in beautiful, cultured, decent Marathi in the tradition of Lokmanya Tilak & Ramdas Swami, making even very difficult and scholarly topics easy for the common people to understand.
He was steeped in the humanist thoughts of M. N. Roy, George Orwell, Karl Pauper, Arthur Koestler, and Kolakowsky.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Talwalkar toured Eastern Europe and wrote journalistic essays on the changing scene.
After retirement he wrote a regular column – Saurabh – in Lalit each month on books & other topics such as 400th anniversary of saint Ramdas Swami.
In 2016 he obtained original papers from Japan and Russia and proved that the freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose did die in the aeroplane crash.
He wrote articles in the Tribune (Chandigarh) which finally put to rest the controversy surrounding Subhas Babu's death.