Shekhar Gupta is the Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express, a newspaper at the forefront of investigative and public-affairs journalism. He leads the nation’s largest network of award-winning journalists whose work has effected change in several areas, including government policy and legislation.
Shekhar, known as a reporter’s editor, has some of the significant newsbreaks in contemporary Indian journalism to his credit. At 26, as a reporter with The Indian Express, he exposed the horrific Nellie massacre in Assam that marked a watershed in the North-East’s ethnic conflict. As a reporter, and then an editor, with India Today, India’s largest newsmagazine, he uncovered LTTE training camps in India, nailed the lie of official intelligence agencies in a spy scandal that falsely implicated scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation. And seven years before 9/11, travelled across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany, the US and the UK, to report extensively on the threat from Islamic fundamentalism, including its links with Osama bin Laden.
His weekly column called National Interest, now in its ninth year, has become a touchstone for new ideas in politics, governance, society, business and sports. He also hosts an interview-based programme Walk the Talk on NDTV 24x7, India’s most watched and respected English news channel.
A regular guest speaker at 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. His newspaper won the Vienna-based International Press Institute’s first India Award for Outstanding Journalism in the Public Interest.
Raj Kamal Jha (b. 1966) is the author of The Blue Bedspread, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, 2000, 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.
Jha was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur where he studied Mechanical Engineering, and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California (USC) where he received his M.A. in 1990.
Jha was an Assistant Editor at The Statesman in Kolkata, a Senior Associate Editor at India Today Magazine, New Delhi, and is currently Executive Editor of The Indian Express, group of newspapers in New Delhi. The newspaper won the first India award of the International Press Institute, Vienna, for its coverage of the Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat.
Jha was recently a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also a fellow at the prestigious Yaddo Residency in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 2005.
Chief Editor, Loksatta, the leading Marathi Daily of the Indian Express Group. Earlier, Editor-In-Chief, Lokmat and also Maharashtra Times, of The Times of India Group. Resident Editor, Daily Observer, of the Ambani Group, Reliance, (1990-93)
Before that Special Correspondent, The Economic Times, The Times of India Group.
Reported from US, Soviet Union, UK, Germany, China, Israel, Vietnam, Hong Kong on
1. Collapse of Soviet Union, 1991
2. Integration of two Germanys, 1990
3. Hong Kong’s integration with Mainland China
4. Four Presidential elections in US-1988, 1992, 1996, 2000
5. Israel's fiftieth anniversary
6. Transformation of China's economy.
7. New Vietnam
8. UK elections in 1987 and 1992
Recipient of Awards:
1. Padmashree. Government of India's Republic Day award in 2001
2. CD Deshmukh award for excellent writing in economics
3. Acharya Atre award for bold editorials.
4. Giants International award for reporting world events.
Om Thanvi took his post graduation degree in business administration and joined the mainstream hindi journalism in 1980.
He is editor of Jansatta, a prestigious daily of the indian express group.
He is Secretary General of Editors Guild of India.
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.
20 years ago he took the c.s.e. 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.
Om Thanvi is a recipient of the prestigious Haldighati Award for Journalism, constituted by the Mewar Foundation, Udaipur.
