credit: indiantelevision.com

Arnab Goswami:
 
Arnab is one of the most popular news readers and talk show host of contemporary TV journalism. He currently is the Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, which was also founded by him. This 36 year old dynamic entrepreneur is basically from Assam but as his father was in army he has stayed all over India. He cleared his Standard 10th board exams from St Mary’s School, Delhi Cantonment and his Standard 12th board exams from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jabalpur Cantonment. He did his graduation in Sociology from Hindu College, Delhi University. Also, he completed his Masters in Social Anthropology from Oxford University (St Antony’s College) in 1994. He became a Visiting Fellow at the International Studies Department at Cambridge University (Sidney Sussex College) where he was a D C Pavate fellow in 2000.

He started with a job in the newspaper, ‘The Telegraph’ in Calcutta and worked their for roughly an year. Later he joined NDTV and covered three general elections and the Jain Hawala case in his 9 and a half years tryst with NDTV. Taking the biggest step in his professional life he launched the news channel ‘Times Now’, which very soon came in the league of no. 1 news channels in India. Shows anchored by Arnab are The News hour, Frankly Speaking, Versus. 

This guy who believes on news that is “popular and not populist” stretched beyond all limits during the November 2008 Mumbai attack, anchoring the news for 4 days at continuously. He has received Asian Television awards, the Society Young Achievers award for excellence in the field of Media, and Indian News Broadcasting Awards 2008 for Innovative Editor-in-Chief.

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Karan Thapar :
 
Karan Thapar, the president of Infotainment Television, is a veteran interviewer and television commentator. He was born on 05 November, 1955 in Srinagar. He did his schooling from The Doon School and Stowe School and completed his graduation in Economics and Political Philosophy from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1977. He did his Phd in International Relations from St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

His career in journalism took off with The Times in Lagos, Nigeria and in times to come became their Leader Writer on the Indian subcontinent. In 1982 he joined London Weekend Television where he worked for the next 11 years. Subsequently he moved to India and worked with The Hindustan Times Television Group, Home TV and United Television. In August 2001, he set afloat his own company named Infotainment Television, which makes programmes for others BBC, Doordarshan and Channel News Asia.

He has been felicitated with innumerable number of awards.In December 2003, he won both awards in the current affairs category of the Asian Television Awards and he became the first person to do so. He won the ‘The Best Current Affairs Programme’ a record 4 times,  for interviewing Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri, on Court Martial, for his one of the most popular shows on BBC ‘Face to Face’, for his interview with former Indian Law Minister and BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley on Hardtalk India and for interview with Ram Jethmalani “on Devil’s Advocate(CNN IBN). In 2008 Devil’s Advocate received  ‘Best News/Current Affairs Show’ by News Television Awards and Karan got the award for ‘News Interviewer of the Year’ by Indian News Broadcasting Awards. In April 2009 he was honored with the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award & was chosen the ‘Journalist of the Year (Broadcast)’.

In his stay in London Karan happened to meet Nisha (a successful banker),whom he married soon. But unfortunately she died of encephalitis in 1991.
 
Thapar is known for his intense and unnerving interviews with leading politicians and celebrities- like cricketer Kapil Dev(Kapil broke down into tears), George Fernandes, Jayalalithaa, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, General Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and The Dalai Lama(The most prominent among all).  He writes a weekly column Sunday Sentiments in The Hindustan Times is very popular among readers.

credit: indiatv

Rajat sharma:
 
Rajat Sharma, the ‘Apki Adalat’ man, as we all know him is the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of India TV, the no. 1 Hindi news channel today. He has dedicated 10 long years in print media working as editor for national publications before he came in the TV journalism business in 1992. In his show ‘Apki Adalat’ ,which has a record of being aired for 16  glorious years(Longest running TV show in India), he has questioned over 500 personalities from every possible field of interest. This show fetched him the Best Anchor felicitation several times, including the Indian Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. 
He came up with his own production house to make programmes for Star TV. 

Rajat did his BCom Hons and MCom from Shriram College of Commerce. He also is a part of the management committee of the same college. He also is President of the Indian Scout and Guide Fellowship. He is a part of the board of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, IBF.

The able leader has given a new direction to TV journalism and his firm belief on principles like “Credibility fist” has made India TV one of the most viewed news channels in India.

These are the faces from Indian journalism whom almost every Indian relates to and looks up to,  to bring them the news that matters to them, that bothers them. Hope they continue to live up to the trust we have put on them.

I am sure you would love to read the stories of other popular faces of Indian Journalism as well and I promise to continue it by adding more. Those who have missed the part one of it, read also:

Popular Faces of Indian Journalism (TV)

Popular faces of Indian journalism

We have seen some of the finest Journalists in TV journalism in the recent times. They have given a different look and feel to the once very monotonous news reading and news channels. Lets have a brief overview of professional and personal journey of some of our star journalists.

credit: indiantelevision.com

Dr. Prannoy Roy:

The 60 year old prominent journalist founded the largest private television production house, New Delhi Television (NDTV) in 1988. The president of NDTV is also the Director on board of NDTV Media Limited, NDTV News Limited , NDTV Imagine Limited, NDTV Lifestyle Limited, NDTV Convergence Limited, NDTV Labs Limited, NDTV Investments Private Limited, RRPR Holding Private Limited, Metronation Chennai Television Private Limited, Alliance Lumiere Limited and NGEN Media Services Private Limited. Also, he is a Member of the Shareholder’s Investors Grievance Committee of the Board of Directors of the Company.

Born on October 15, 1949, to a Bengali Father and an English mother, he spent his childhood in Kolkata and Dehradun, studying in La Martiniere Calcutta and then in The Doon School, Dehradun. He then received a scholarship to study at the Haileybury, a renowned public school in England. He graduated in economics from The Queen Mary College, The University of London in 1973. He completed his doctorate from the prestigious Delhi School of Economics. He worked as chartered accountant for sometime and then for 2 years (1985-1987) he was with the Ministry of Finance, Government of India working as Economic Advisor.

Prannoy Roy, who also is famous writer Arundhati Roy’s cousin, got married to Radhika Roy (Director NDTV, a speech therapist and Brinda Karat’s sister) in 1973 and is father of two children.

One of his most noteworthy contribution is his election analysis, that he does with Vinod Dua.  Dua-Roy duo has analyzed every election since 1984. Amongst the myriad of awards he has been acknowledged with, a few are: the B. D. Goenka Award for excellence in Journalism in 1994 and 1995, Ernst & Young – Entrepreneur of the year award (Media), the Screen Videocon Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1998 and the Limca Book of Records -Person of the Year award in 1998. 

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Vinod Dua:

Vinod Dua, the anchor, the election analyst, the political commentator, he is one of the most famous and influential personalities Indian Journalism has witnessed. He was born on March 11, 1954. He is from a very humble background with his early days spent in refugee camp in Delhi, but his achievements are not as humble. He graduated in English Literature from Hans Raj College, University of Delhi. He completed his Masters in literature from the same university.

He made his debut in Indian television on 27th November 1974,  appearing in Yuv Manch, a youth program on Doordarshan. Subsequently he anchored a series of youth programs like Yuv Jan( for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment), Jawan Tarang ( for Amritsar TV).  Co-anchoring the election analysis programs on Doordarshan with Dr. Prannoy Roy gave him the well deserved breakthrough in his career. He hosted a program called Janvani, which was the first program in the history of Indian television to have allowed direct questions from common man to the politician. He ventured into direction and production business with the current affairs magazine Newsline(first one to be produced and sponsered privately), anchored by eminent journalist M.J. Akbar, and promoted by Ananda Bazar group. In 1987, after working as chief producer in T.V. Today, he started his own production company ‘The Communication Group’ to produce and anchor current affairs programs, budget analyses and documentary films.

Chakravyuha on Zee T.V, Parakh, on Doordarshan, Tasveer-e-Hind on DD3, Chunav Chunauti on Sony Entertainment Television, election analysis on Zee News, Pratidin and Parakh on Sahara T.V. and Kaun Banega Mukhyamantri on Star News have been some of the memorable programs with Vinod Dua’s involvement. As of now he is associated with NDTV,  for daily news analysis, election and budget analysis. He also produces a weekly show Zaika India Ka for food enthusiasts.

Vinod Dua was awarded esteemed BD Goenka Award for excellence in journalism in 1996. Dua has been honored with the Padma Shri  for Journalism in 2008.

Rajdeep Sardesai:

Rajdeep Sardesai, the editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN was born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on 24 may,1965. His father, Dilip Sardesai is a former Indian Test cricketer and mother, Nalini Sardesai, former Head of the Department of sociology, St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai. He did his schooling from Cathedral and John Connon School, Campion School in Mumbai.  He holds multiple degrees like Bachelor’s in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai,  Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, and Bachelor of Civil Law from University College, Oxford.

He started his Television journalism career as Political Editor in NDTV in 1994 and then later he became the Managing editor of NDTV 24/7 and NDTV India. He came into limelight because of the super hit show ‘The Big Fight’ that he hosted. Later in his career he quit NDTV on April 17, 2007 and founded Global Broadcast News (GBN) in collaboration with CNN and Raghav Bahl’s TV18.  Then the channel named CNN-IBN with Rajdeep Sardesai as Editor-in-Chief went live on air. CNN-IBN overtook Channel 7, buying 46 percent stake in the channel. Since then Channel 7 is known by the name of IBN-7. He was conferred with prestigious Padma Shri award in 2008 for his contribution to journalism.

Rajdeep married his colleague, senior editor and anchor at CNN-IBN, Sagarika Ghose in 1994. They met in Oxford University. They are blessed with two children, son Ishan (14) and daughter Tarini (12). His out of domain interest includes cricket and has played for the Oxford University team as a right-hand batsman and a right-arm offbreak bowler.

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