Senior Editors

Credibility and high intergrity, in addition to a persistent sense of inquiry, fairness and professionalism are the hallmark of his editorial leadership. In his own writings, as well as under his editorship. Shekhar has helped build the foundation of modern Indian journalism that is fearless, fair and fiercely independent.

Born on August 28, 1957, Shekhar Gupta�s 33-year record in journalism is one of uncompromising commitment to independence and credibility. He has to his credit some of the most significant newsbreaks in Indian journalism. He joined the Indian Express as a cub reporter at its Chandigarh edition in 1977. Three years later, at just 23, The Indian Express sent him to India�s troubled north-east where he covered the then raging insurgencies and civil unrest. As a reporter, and then an editor, with India Today, Shekhar has always brought to readers in India a ringside view of contemporary history: From Operation Bluestar to the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War from Baghdad, Jerusalem and Kuwait, the first �jihad� in Afghanistan and the many twists & turns in the troubled 1983-1993 decade in Sri Lanka�s Tamil North.

Shekhar uncovered LTTE training camps in India, the truth behind the falsely implicated scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation in a spy scandal. And seven years before the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, he travelled across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany, the US and the UK, to report extensively on the threat from pan-national fundamentalism, including its links with Osama bin Laden.

Shekhar�s weekly column called National Interest is one of the most credible and independent voices in the media. It is a touchstone for new ideas in politics, governance, society, business and sports and is the subject of a forthcoming book. He also hosts an interview-based programme Walk the Talk on NDTV 24x7, now completing its 7th year uninterrupted.

A regular guest speaker at prestigious forums including the Asia Society, New York, National Defense College and Defense Services Staff College and the World Economic Forum in Davos and its India summits, Shekhar has authored Assam: A Valley Divided and India Redefines Its Role, published by the Oxford University Press by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, where he is a member of the Council. Over the years he has engaged as one of the pre-eminent voices from India on issues ranging from domestic politics and society to security and international affairs.

Shekhar is the recipient of several awards and honours, including the1985 Inlaks award for young journalist of the year, G K Reddy Award for Journalism, the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Memorial Award for National Integration. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by the Govt of India in 2009.Under his leadership, The Indian Express has won the Vienna-based International Press Institute�s Award for Outstanding Journalism in the Public Interest thrice, the first time for its coverage of the Gujarat riots of 2002 and the second time for uncovering the Bihar flood scam relief scandal of 2005 and the third time for its sustained investigation into the Malegaon and Modasa blasts of 2008 and the alleged role of Hindu extremists and organisations.
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Jha is a 1988 graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, where he studied Mechanical Engineering. He did his Master's in Journalism at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and in 1989-90, did reporting internships at the Los Angeles Times in Los Angeles and the Washington Post in Washington, D.C. He has been an Assistant Editor (News) at The Statesman in Kolkata and Senior Associate Editor at India Today magazine, New Delhi.

Jha was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the international journalism programme where he taught a course on Reporting on India after 9/11. He was also a writing fellow at the Yaddo Residency in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Jha is the author of three novels that have been published in more than a dozen foreign languages: The Blue Bedspread (1999-2000), won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Eurasia region) and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; his second novel If You Are Afraid of Heights was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award 2003. His third novel, Fireproof, was published in 2006.
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to the piecemeal interventions that take place today in areas like power and oil. Over the past several years, Sunil has written extensively on issues like regulatory capture, giving details of faulty decisions by the telecom as well as various electricity regulators across the country, as well as on other policy gaffes such as reservations being contemplated in the education sector as well as in employment, for minorities as well as other so-called disadvantaged groups.

Prior to this, Sunil was Assistant Managing Editor of Financial Express where, apart from the opinion pages, he was in charge of policy-related news. Before joining FE, he was Senior Associate Editor of Business Standard where he also looked after its opinion pages.

After finishing his Masters from the Delhi School of Economics in 1986, Sunil began his career as a consultant conducting market surveys and techno-economic feasibility reports; he did this for four years and then moved to FICCI where has was in charge of the export policy desk for a little over a year.

He then moved to journalism where he has spent nearly two decades so far. After starting his journalistic career as a reporter in India Today magazine in 1991, he was the magazine�s Business Editor for a year, and then moved on to heading all business and economy coverage for The Indian Express. After working for six years in the Express, he worked with Business Standard for 8 years, and is now with The Financial Express.

Sunil appears regularly on all mainline television channels in the country, and also came out with a short daily data-capsule called Express Insight for CNBC for several months. He�s written a weekly column in the largest Hindi newspaper, Dainik Bhaskar, for over six months. Sunil was responsible for writing up two books based on the results of NCAER�s latest annual household survey � while The Great Indian Middle Class focused on income levels across the country, The Great Indian Market focused on the buying behaviour of consumers. His new book which focuses on the income and expenditure patterns across various caste groups in the country, with a view to determine what causes the difference in income/expenditure patterns across caste groups, hit the stands in July 2010.
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Before ET, he had a long stint with Maharashtra Times, a Marathi daily of the Times group. A Bombay University graduate in science, he did his post graduation in journalism from the Pune University.

He had a unique distinction of breaking the language barrier when he was selected for the Chevening Scholarship in 1998. This was the year India carried out Pokhran II that offered Girish an opportunity journalist vie for of contributing to the British media on India�s perspective on the Vajpayee government�s decision to conduct nuclear tests. The same year he also covered G8 summit at Birminngham held in the aftermath of India�s�and subsequently Pakistan�s too�atomic tests. Back in Mumbai in �98, Girish moved to ET from Maharashtra Times. Incidentally it�s for the first time in the Time's history that a journalist of a language paper was allowed to take a transfer to one of the BCCL�s premier daily.

An avid reader and excellent orator, Girish has four important Marathi books to his credit. HA TEL NAVACHA ITIHAAS AAHE. Published in '06 the book is about history of Oil since 1850s when Rockefeller dreamed of setting up his oil empire. It also talks about how oil has been driving major developments in the last over 150 years. EKA TELIYAANE is a story of (published '08) the legendary Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani and the tragedy of the West Asia.

ADHARMAYUDHDHA...published in March '09 is a comprehensive history of Islamic countries' exploition by Western powers for petty political gains right from The Great Game. Coming in the wake of 26/11 the book explains how the current terrorism is a by-product of the energy wars. YUDHA JIVANCHE, published in September �10, the book narrates a scary history of the biological and chemical warfare. All the books have won various awards.

Girish came aboard the LokSatta in October �10. He has been sharpening his pen to take on Maharashtra�s political establishment which, as you may be aware, has lots of skeletons rattling in the cupboard. Contemporary issues which stare India in the face and world affairs are areas of special interest for Girish.
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bigwigs about trends in Bollywood), Screen Chatroom (a Q &A; session with leading film stars) and Screen Preview (an interaction with the director and the principal cast of an upcoming film). Priyanka is also in charge of the annual Screen Awards (considered the most fair-minded and credible film awards, headed by an impartial film-industry jury). To expand the scope and influence of the Screen Awards, in 2010, she introduced the Screen Academy, a selection academy that comprises leading names from the film industry as its members, and acts as a selection committee for award nominees.

Priyanka brings a 360 degree approach to her specialty viz. celebrity and entertainment journalism. She is among the few editors who have had the experience of editing and writing for both magazines and newspapers of varied subjects and periodicity. She cut her teeth early as a correspondent at Citadel (a city magazine), The Asian Age (a national daily) and Intelligent Investor/Outlook Money (a personal finance magazine). She then started her stint as an editor at 26, with Society magazine (a national celebrity magazine) and followed it up with the editorship of HT Style (a daily lifestyle supplement) and HT Saturday (the Saturday edition of Hindustan Times). In a career spanning over 15 years, she has written on varied subjects such as entertainment, art, business, crime, trends and of course, celebrities and their lifestyles. Priyanka is known for her insightful interviews with celebrities such as Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Mukesh and Neeta Ambani, Sam Pitroda, Manmohan Singh, MF Husain, Shobhaa De, Vijay Mallya and Ness Wadia among others. She has written popular columns such as Rough Cut (Screen), Hear & Now (H T Style) and Point of View (Society), in addition to contributing to publications such as Outlook, Tehelka and, The Week magazine. She has also moderated discussions on Bollywood celebrities and trends for Jet Wings magazine as well as for business publications in the Express group, besides being quoted in publications such as The Guardian on Bollywood trends and on BBC Radio on Indian celebrity lifestyles.

Priyanka was recently honoured with the Young Communicator Award by the ISB&M; school of Communication (Pune) for her contribution to journalism, and was also featured in Doordarshan's series dedicated to Women Achievers.

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He had been Secretary General of Editors Guild of India for two terms as well as Vice President of South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA).

Before joining Jansatta in Delhi, he had worked in Chandigarh for ten years (1989-1999) as its resident editor. These were the years when Punjab was in the grip of terrorism and all the institutions of democracy, including the press, were under severe attack. Jansatta remained the only major paper that did not succumb to the "Code of Conduct" imposed by the terrorists on press.

Prior to joining Jansatta, Om Thanvi had edited Itwari Patrika (1980-1987), a hindi literary and cultural weekly and had also worked as editor-in-charge of Rajasthan Patrika in Bikaner (1987-1989), the widely-read daily of Rajasthan.

He is known for his social and cultural concerns. He has personally been engaged in theatre, literature and environmental activities. Has keen interest in history and anthropology; particularly in music, cinema, painting, architecture and language.

25 years ago he took the CSE fellowship and studied the conventional water harvesting traditions of Rajasthan which later became a much talked and researched subject among the environmentalists all over. The Times of India interviewed him on front page: an unusual occasion in journalism when one journalist was interviewing another. He is deeply involved with literary activities of Hindi in the Capital. He writes travelogues and critical essays. His ten-part travelogue on Pakistan, tracing remains of the Indus Valley civilization, was widely acclaimed in the literary circles.

Om Thanvi is a recipient of many awards. Recently he was awarded with Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Puraskar for Journalism by the President of India.
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