The 1992 stock market swindle starring Harshad Mehta broken by the journalist Sucheta Dalal is now a “major motion picture” thanks to the web series Scam 1992 directed by Hansal Mehta. Unbelievable as it may seem today, Sucheta’s investigation appeared in The Times of India, in an all-too-brief brush with investigative journalism for India’s largest…
Tag Archives: H.K. Dua
‘The media adviser to the PM has absolutely no role [in the prime minister’s office]. He is a nobody.”
The post of media advisor to the Prime Minister is much coveted by journalists, past and present, as the very apogee of their careers. A number of worthies have held the title: H.Y. Sharada Prasad, H.K. Dua, Prem Shankar Jha, Harish Khare, Pankaj Pachauri. And there are at least a dozen journalists hoping to be…
18 factoids in ‘Caravan’ profile of Shekhar Gupta
The December “media issue” of Caravan magazine has a 20-page profile of former Indian Express editor-in-chief and shortlived India Today editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta. Authored by Krishn Kaushik, the profile is titled “Capital Reporter”, with the strapline “How profit and principle shaped the journalism of Shekhar Gupta”. *** # The son of a minor bureaucrat from…
A pre-Google ‘Bomb Mama’ of nuclear prolificity
The passing away of K. Subrahmanyam, the bureaucrat turned strategic affairs expert and journalist, at the age of 82 after a valiant battle with cancer, has provoked a flurry of warm tributes in newspapers. The former Economic Times editor Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, who brought “Subbu” into ET, recalls Subrahmanyam’s prolificity: “Many journalists have trouble…
‘The Tribune broke Liberhan story 5 months ago’
The “national” media in India—a loose moniker that alludes to Delhi-based newspapers, magazines and TV stations—are routinely accused of picking up stories from the regional language press and passing them off as “exclusives” when no one is watching. Fingers are now being pointed at the northern editions of The Indian Express which on November 23…
IJR 