Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (born 5 October 1955) is an Indian journalist, writer, publisher, documentary film maker and teacher. He has been a guest faculty member at

IIM Ahmedabad Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad) is the world's number 1 business school, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The school has been accorded the status of an Institute of National Importance by Ministry of Human Resource ...

for 18 consecutive years, and also taught at the IIMs at

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commerc ...

and Shillong, the

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

, Jawaharlal Nehru University,

Asian College of Journalism The Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) is a journalism school in Chennai, India, which offers postgraduate diploma courses in journalism. History Asian College of Journalism, Chennai was founded in Bangalore as the Asian School of Journalism, Ba ...

and Jamia Millia Islamia among other educational institutions.

Career

Guha Thakurta was educated at

La Martiniere Calcutta ''La Martiniere ''(informally known as LMC) is an elite, independent private day school located in Kolkata (Calcutta), West Bengal. It comprises two single-gender boys and girls schools. It was established in 1836 in accordance with the will of ...

, pursued his undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College and completed his masters from

Delhi School of Economics Delhi School of Economics (DSE), popularly referred to as "D School", is a Higher Educational Institution within the University of Delhi. The Delhi School of Economics is situated in University of Delhi's North Campus in Maurice Nagar. Establ ...

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 45 years, he has been associated with major media houses like ''

Business India ''Business India'' is a fortnightly business news magazine founded by brothers Ashok Hotchand Advani, Hiroo Advani and Rajkumar Advani in 1978 and published in Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) ...

'', ''

Businessworld ''BusinessWorld'' is a business newspaper in the Philippines with a nationwide circulation of more than 117,000 (as of March 2014). Founded in 1967 as ''Business Day'', it is Southeast Asia's first daily business newspaper. History ''Busin ...

'', ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'', '' India Today'' and '' The Pioneer''. He also hosted the chat show ''India Talks'' on CNBC-India which ran over 1400 episodes. In 2013, he directed a short documentary film ''Coal Curse'' which highlighted the wrongs in the Indian coal mining industry. 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 Subir Ghosh (born 7 September 1966) is an Indian journalist and writer, whose works have appeared in print and online since 1991. His areas of focus are environment, human rights, conflict and Northeast India. He currently resides in Bangalore. ...

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. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta Aakar Patel

In 2016, he joined EPW (Economic and Political Weekly) as Editor. Following his article on how

Adani Group Adani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Ahmedabad. It was founded by Gautam Adani in 1988 as a commodity trading business, with the flagship company Adani Enterprises. The Group's diverse businesses include po ...

was benefited by the government policies, a defamation notice was sent to the Sameeksha Trust and the authors of the article. Soon after that, Guha Thakurta resigned as the Editor of EPW. The article brought to light how the Government tweaked the rules which favoured a certain company within the

to the tune of Rs 500 Crores. EPW tried to reach out to Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Industry and Commerce, but no explanation was given for this policy decision. The

is headed by Gautam Adani who is understood to be close to Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

. Guha Thakurta was appointed Editor of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in January 2016 replacing C Rammanohar Reddy, who steered the prestigious journal since 2004. Guha Thakurta resigned as editor of EPW on July 18, 2017 over alleged differences with the board of the Sameeksha Trust that runs the journal. Guha Thakurta co-authored an article about the

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxp ...

following which

Adani Power Adani Power is an Indian power and energy company. A subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Adani Group with head office at Khodiyar in Ahmedabad, it is a private thermal power producer, with a capacity of 12,450 MW that operates a mega solar plant ...

sent a legal notice to the Economic and Political Weekly. Fearing an expensive lawsuit by one of India’s biggest corporate houses EPW then decided to take down the article, prompting Paranjoy Guha Thakurta's resignation.

Paid news

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. 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 Jagran'' ( Hi:दैनिक जागरन , , ) is an Indian Hindi language daily newspaper. It was ranked 5th in the world and 2nd in India by circulation in 2016. In 2019 Quarter 4, according to Indian Readership Survey, Daini ...

, Dainik Bhaskar, Punjab Kesari,

Lokmat ''Lokmat'' () is a Marathi language newspaper published in Maharashtra state. Founded in 1971 by Jawaharlal Darda, it is the largest read regional language newspaper in India with more than 18 million readers and the No. 1 Marathi newspaper i ...

Eenadu ''Eenadu'' () is the largest circulated Telugu-language daily newspaper of India sold mostly in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.Sakshi group, among others. In September 2010, the

Central Information Commission The Central Information Commission is a statutory body, set up under the Right to Information Act in 2005 under the Government of India to act upon complaints from those individuals who have not been able to submit information requests to a Cent ...

(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. Guha Thakurta has since written extensively on the issue of "paid news". In a December 2013 article for ''

First Post ''Firstpost'' is an Indian online news and media website. The site is a part of the Network 18 media conglomerate owned by Reliance Industries, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC-TV18. The ''Network 18'' group was originally owned by Ragha ...

'', he explained why the malaise of "paid news" is a threat to democracy:

PIL on 2G case

Guha Thakurta was one of many well-known people who joined a public interest litigation in the

2G spectrum case The 2G spectrum case was a political controversy in which politicians and private officials of the United Progressive Alliance coalition government India were involved in selling or allotting 122 2G spectrum licenses on conditions that provi ...

, originally filed by the

Centre for Public Interest Litigation The Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) is an Indian non-governmental organisation that conducts litigation on matters of public interest. The CPIL was established by late Justice V. M. Tarkunde, a former judge of the Supreme Court of In ...

(CPIL) led by lawyer Prashant Bhushan. He has written extensively on the scam, with the first article on the subject appearing in '' The Economic Times'' in November 2007. Soon after its publication, a legal notice was served on him by Reliance Communications.

Works

Books

* ''A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand'', 2004 SAGE; co-author Shankar Raghuraman, . * ''Media Ethics'', 2009 Oxford University Press, . * '' Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis'', 2014 Paranjoy Guha Thakurta; co-authors Subir Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri, . * '' Sue the Messenger: How legal arm-twisting by corporates is shackling reportage and undermining democracy in India''; co-author with Subir Ghosh; 2016 Paranjoy and Authors UpFront, . * ''Thin Dividing Line: India, Mauritius and Global Illicit financial flows''; co-authored with Shinzani Jain; 2017 Penguin Random House India, . * ''Loose Pages:Court Cases That Could Have Shaken India'', co-author Sourya Majumder, . * ''The Real Face of Facebook in India: How Social Media have Become a Weapon and Disseminator of Disinformation and Falsehood'', 2019 Paranjoy Guha Thakurta; co-author Cyril Sam, * ''A Million Mission: Non Profit Sector in India,'' 2014 Paranjoy; Author Mathew Cherian, * ''Calcutta'' ''Diary'', 2014 Paranjoy; Author Ashok Mitra, * ''The Modi Myth'', 2015 Paranjoy; Author S. Nihal Singh, * ''Netaji: Living Dangerously'', 2015 Paranjoy; Author Kingshuk Nag, * ''Idea of India Hard To Beat: Republic Resilient,'' 2016 Paranjoy; Author Badri Raina, * ''First Person Singular,'' 2016 Paranjoy; Author Ashok Mitra, * ''Encounters,'' 2016 Paranjoy; Author Ramnika Gupta, * ''Junkland Journeys: The witty story of how world is won by a whacky addict who discovers god in a dog'', 2016 Paranjoy; Author Ajith Pillai, * ''Edward John Thompson: British Liberalism and the Limits of Rapprochement,'' 2016 Paranjoy; Author Shashi Raina, * ''The Story of Secularism: 15th-21st Century,'' 2016 Paranjoy; Author Nalini Rajan, * ''Kashmir: A Noble Tryst in Tatters,'' 2017 Paranjoy; Author Badri Raina, * ''Chasing His Father's Dreams: Inside Story of Odisha's Longest Serving Chief Minister,'' 2017 Paranjoy; Author Biswajit Mohanty, * ''The Russian Revolution: And Storms Across A Century (1917-2017)'', 2017 Paranjoy; Author, Achala Moulik, * ''Alternative Futures: India Unshackled,'' 2017 AuthorsUpFront Paranjoy; Authors Ashish Kothari and K.J. Roy, * ''Grand Illusion: The GSPC Disaster and the Gujarat Model,'' 2017 Paranjoy; Author Subir Ghosh, * ''Corruption, CBI and I: More than Memories of a Veteran Scam-Buster,'' 2020 Paranjoy; Authors Shantonu Sen and Sanjukta Basu, * ''India's Long Walk Home,'' 2020 Paranjoy; Authors Ishan Chauhan and Zenaida Cubbinz, * ''India: The Wasted Years,'' 2021 Paranjoy; Author Avay Shukla, * ''Electoral Democrary? An Inquiry into the Fairness and Integrity of Elections in India,'' 2022 Paranjoy; Edited by M.G. Devasahayam, Book Launch of Loose Pages Court Cases That Could Have Shaken India

Book Launch of Loose Pages Court Cases That Could Have Shaken India

Documentaries

* ''Idiot Box or Window of Hope, 2003'' * ''Hot As Hell: A Profile of Dhanbad, 2006'' * ''Grabbing Eyeballs: What’s Unethical About Television News in India, 2007'' * ''Advertorial: Selling News or Products?, 2009'' * ''So Near Yet So Far, 2009'' * ''Blood & Iron: A Story of the Convergence of Crime, Business and Politics in Southern India, 2010-11'' * ''The Great Indian Telecom Robbery, 2011'' * ''Freedom Song, 2012'' * ''Children In Crossfire, 2013'' * ''A Thin Dividing Line, 2014'' * ''Coal Curse, 2013'' * ''In the Heart of Our Darkness: The Life and Death of Mahendra Karma, 2013'' * ''Inferno: Jharkhand's Underground Fires, 2015'' * ''Even it Up, 2015'' * ''Farzi:Vypam Ka Vyapaar, 2018'' * ''Unfair,2019'' * ''India's Children: Gorakhpur's Broken Public Health, 2019'' * ''Anand Vihar: Workers on the Longest Walk of their Lives, 2020'' * ''Migrant Workers: Stranded and Scared, 2020'' * ''What Bengal Thinks Today, 2021'' * '' Anjan Ghosh Tribute, 2021''

Music Videos

* ''Dike Dike Hao Hushiar, 2021'' (Producer and Director), Featurin
The Fiddler's Green
* ''Dharti Tumhari, Dharti Hamari, 2021'' (Producer and Director), Featuring Deepak Castelino

References

External links

Personal website

Hot as hell
on Culture Unplugged
Books on Amazon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thakurta, Paranjoy Guha Delhi School of Economics alumni Indian male television journalists Indian documentary filmmakers Indian newspaper editors Indian political writers Indian publishers (people) Living people 1955 births 20th-century Bengalis Bengali film directors Bengali writers Bengali Hindus Journalists from West Bengal Indian journalists Indian male journalists 20th-century Indian journalists 21st-century Indian journalists English-language writers from India Indian film directors 21st-century Indian film directors Film directors from West Bengal Indian newspaper journalists Indian academics Indian book publishers (people) Indian music video directors Indian scholars 21st-century Indian scholars Indian environmental writers Indian political scientists Indian social sciences writers Indian sociologists Indian economics writers Indian non-fiction environmental writers Indian economists 20th-century Indian economists 21st-century Indian economists Indian social scientists 20th-century Indian social scientists 21st-century Indian social scientists Indian development economists Indian development specialists Indian male writers 21st-century Indian writers Indian non-fiction writers Indian male non-fiction writers 21st-century Indian non-fiction writers