Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta - June 2016
Born (1955-10-05) 5 October 1955
Alma mater University of Delhi
Occupation Journalist
Author
Filmmaker
Website www.paranjoy.in

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (born 5 October 1955) is an Indian journalist, political commentator, author and a documentary film maker. His works have appeared in print, radio, television and documentaries.[1] He is also a regular guest lecturer at some of the top institutes like the Indian Institutes of Management, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia.[2] Paranjoy was appointed editor of the Economic and Political Weekly in January 2016 replacing C Rammanohar Reddy, who steered the prestigious journal since 2004.

Career

Guha Thakurta was educated at La Martiniere Calcutta, pursued his undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College and completed his masters from Delhi School of Economics in 1977. With the Emergency of 1975-77, he decided to be a journalist over being a lecturer. In June 1977, he joined a Kolkata-based magazine as assistant editor. Through his career spanning over 30 years, he has been associated with major media houses like Business India, Businessworld, The Telegraph, India Today and The Pioneer. He also hosted the chat show India Talks on CNBC-India which ran over 1400 episodes.[2]

In 2013, he directed a short documentary film Coal Curse which highlighted the wrongs in the Indian coal mining industry.[3] The 45-minute film, supported by Greenpeace, delved into the political economy of coal in contemporary India with the Singrauli example serving as a case study. This was Guha Thakurta's second film on coal, the earlier one being 'Hot as hell: Why Jharia is burning', that was produced in 2006 by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust.

His 2014 book Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis, co-authored with Subir Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri, dealt with alleged irregularities of the prices of natural gas in the Indian market. Reliance Industries Limited, one of India's major conglomerates which is also involved in oil and gas exploration and production, sent a legal notice to Guha Thakurta and others for defamation through this book.[4]

Guha Thakurta was a member of the sub-committee set up by the Press Council of India to look into the malaise of paid news. Initially, the report titled '‘Paid News: How Corruption in the Indian Media Undermines Democracy" was to be released on 26 April 2010, but it was deferred after many members of the Council raised objections.[5] A diluted version of the report, which was released on 30 July 2010, raised a storm. A number of newspaper establishments were named as having indulged in editorial malpractices. These included Bennett, Coleman and Co (owners of The Times of India), HT Media (owners of Hindustan Times, Hindustan and Mint), Dainik Jagaran, Dainik Bhaskar, Punjab Kesari, Lokmat, Eenadu, and Sakshi group, among others.[6]

In September 2010, the Central Information Commission (CIC) of India directed the Council to make public the report as part of suo motu disclosure mandated under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.[7]

Guha Thakurta has since written extensively on the issue of "paid news". In a December 2013 article for First Post, he explained why the malaise of "paid news" is a threat to democracy:

The independence of the media and its ability to bring about transparency in society by playing an adversarial role against the establishment get compromised because of corruption within the folds of the media itself. Paid news is one particularly egregious manifestation of the ills of the corporatized media that puts out information that poses as if it has been independently and objectively produced but has actually been paid for.[8]

PIL on 2G Scam

Guha Thakurta was one of many well-known people who joined a public interest litigation in the 2G Spectrum scam, originally filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) led by lawyer Prashant Bhushan.[9] He has written extensively on the scam, with the first article on the subject appearing in the The Economic Times in November 2007. Soon after its publication, a legal notice was served on him by Reliance Communications.[10]

Works

Books

Documentaries

References

  1. ↑ "Paranjoy Thakurta". Jaipur Literature Festival. 4 January 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  2. 1 2 Das, Agnibesh (22 December 2012). "'There are no TV or print journalists. Just good or bad ones'". The Weekend Leader. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  3. ↑ Khurana, Chanpreet (19 April 2013). "Paranjoy Guha Thakurta - The black truth". Live Mint. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  4. ↑ "RIL sends notice to Gas Wars authors". The Hindu. 18 April 2014. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
  5. ↑ August 2010 "'Paid News': The Buried Report" Check |url= value (help). Outlook. 14 June 2015.
  6. ↑ "Final report on Paid News" (PDF). Press Council of India. 2010.
  7. ↑ Ghosh, Subir (21 September 2011). "'Paid news' report spectre returns to haunt Press Council". Asian Correspondent. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  8. ↑ Guha Thakurta, Paranjoy (5 December 2013). "Why paid news is a threat to Indian democracy". First Post. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  9. ↑ Singh, Shalini (15 December 2010). "PIL filed in SC to recover revenue lost to 2G scam". The Economic Times. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  10. ↑ Guha Thakurta, Paranjoy (16 September 2010). "2G scam: Why I filed a PIL against the telecom minister". Rediff.com. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
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