In a phrase like the late Shivarama Karanth how do we explain the use of the definite article when the noun has not been introduced before? (Venkatesh)
It is true that common nouns cannot be used with the definite article unless they have been introduced before. There was a man standing at the gate. The man appeared to be in some distress. But Shivaram Karanth is not a common noun.
This does not mean that proper nouns can be used with the without prior introduction. Proper nouns, except in a few cases cannot be used with the. Generally speaking they don’t need an article at all.
But when a proper noun is used with an adjective the article is needed:  the gifted Ravi Varma, the talented Jones, the irrepressible Shaw. In such cases the phrases are understood as: Ravi Varma, who was gifted;  Jones, who was talented….
There is still a problem. In the old man the article goes with man, not old. In that case in a phrase like the gifted Ravi Varma, what does the article go with? It cannot go with the proper noun. It cannot go with the adjective.  Then what does it go with?
Adjectives with the article the can be used as a title:  Alexander the Great; Charles the Bold; Suleyman the Magnificent. (Note the capital letters.) But in our example the adjective doesn’t seem to function like a title. It is behind the noun (not after it!) and it doesn’t begin with a capital letter.
The only possible explanation is that in the gifted Ravi Varma, the phrase is equivalent to Ravi Varma, the gifted (artist) where the adjective gifted qualifies the noun artist. When the adjective is preposed (=appears behind the noun) the common noun artist (or its equivalent – if nothing else a word like person - is dropped. It is understood.
Continuing on these lines we analyse the late Shivarama Karanth as:  the late (writer/person) Shivaram Karanth.  The identification needed for the use of the is provided by the proper noun.
I have now explained two points:  (a) how the definite article comes to be used when there is no prior mention of the noun. (Proper nouns don’t need to be made ‘definite’ by prior mention.) (b) how the article comes to be used with a proper noun. (It actually modifies an understood noun.)

Desilt is a word most people are familiar with in this part of the world. Tanks, lakes, channels and even harbours are desilted (=the sediment deposited by water is removed) to deepen them. But, surprisingly, the word is not listed in the standard dictionaries, as pointed out by Guru Dutt.
The word listed is dredge. To dredge means to bring up, using a suitable apparatus) sunken objects including, of course, silt.
Now the question is:  Should we use dredge or desilt? Is the Bhatkal harbour to be dredged or to be desilted?
I would say desilted-since dredging could have other meanings. If standard dictionaries have not listed the word, so much the worse for them. When they do list the word desilt, we can congratulate ourselves on having enriched the vocabulary by a much-needed word. 
The justification for using desilt may be seen in the fact one of the meanings of the prefix de given is ‘added to verbs and their derivatives to form verbs and nouns implying removal or reversal: decentralise, de-ice’ etc.

Extreme euphemism
Euphemism, as you know, is a way of expressing unpleasant, shocking truths in a way which covers up their brutality. Many readers will recall the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bosnian murderers. Here is a euphemism from Russia.
Executions had been abolished in Russia after the October Revolution. In the wake of the trials that followed the success of the revolution, Admiral Aleksi Shchastny was sentenced to be shot. When the time came (in 1918) the State Prosecutor told the assembled crowd of spectators:  ‘What are you worrying about? Executions have been abolished.  He is not being executed, he is being shot.’
An even more euphemistic observation was made by the vizier of a Caliph who remarked (of a person who had been tried for a very serious offence); ‘His head appears to be excessive.
An editorial gaffe.  The Chartered Accountant Practice Journal (Vol. 19, part 1, p.vii) has this in its editorial.
‘This issue covers few updates which would be of interest to our readers.’
The writer can be contacted on ksyadurajan@yahoo.com