Afshin Rattansi (born 1968) is a British broadcaster, journalist and author who presents ''Going Underground'' broadcast around the world except in the UK and EU, for Ghaf TV Productions, on networks including the RT network, formerly known as Russia Today.

Early life

Rattansi was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, in 1968, the son of immigrant parents, Prof. Pyarally Mohamedally Rattansi and Zarin Miraly Charania, who had married in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

two years before. His father – late emeritus Professor of History and

Philosophy of Science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

– was born in

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

, one of the ten children of a tea planter, and the Rattansi family had originally come there from Chavand, a village in

Kathiawar Kathiawar (), also known as Saurashtra, is a peninsula in the south-western Gujarat state in India, bordering the Arabian Sea and covering about . It is bounded by the Kutch district in the north, the Gulf of Kutch in the northwest, and by the ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Career

Rattansi began his career as a columnist for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' before working on Britain's Channel 4 primetime documentary series executive produced by Tariq Ali and

Darcus Howe Leighton Rhett Radford "Darcus" Howe (26 February 1943 – 1 April 2017)"Civil ...

, commissioned by Farukh Dhondy and Waldemar Januszczak. He has also worked for the '' Today'' programme on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

CNN International Cable News Network International or CNN International (CNNi, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel and website, owned by CNN Worldwide. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates ...

, Press TV and

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

. He was the launch Business Editor of the Dubai Business Channel. He was also the first English-language producer at Qatar's Al Jazeera Television Network He contributed twice to the scholarly journal, '' Critical Quarterly'' in 2003-4. His work appeared in the 1994

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

anthology, ''Brought to Book'' and his quartet ''The Dream of the Decade'' was published in 2005. He wrote occasional articles for ''

CounterPunch ''CounterPunch'' is a left-wing online magazine. Content includes a free section published five days a week as well as a subscriber-only area called CounterPunch+, where original articles are published weekly. ''CounterPunch'' is based in the Un ...

'' between 2009 and 2019. Rattansi was a guest panelist in a 2018 edition of the BBC's '' Question Time'' in which the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal was discussed. Referring to

Keir Starmer Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and lawyer who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2024 and as Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He previously ...

, Rattansi asked: "Why is it that neo-con, neo-liberal Labour Party members continue to try and use WMDs to push us into war?" In 2022, Afshin Rattansi founded the production company Ghaf TV Productions in the United Arab Emirates where quarter of a century before he was the founding Business Editor of the Dubai Business Channel. He now co-hosts a current affairs

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

show ''Forecast News'' with Millie Pinch.

Filmography

Television

Documentaries

Books

* Afshin Rattansi, ''The Dream of the Decade: the London Novels'' (London: BookSurge, 2006)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rattansi, Afshin 1968 births Living people Al Jazeera people English people of Indian descent Press TV people RT (TV network) people English anti-war activists English expatriates in the United Arab Emirates