Kanchan Gupta (

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the ...

: কাঞ্চন গুপ্ত) is an Indian

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, political analyst, and activist.

Early life and education

Born to

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million pe ...

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

parents, Kanchan Gupta was raised in

Jamshedpur Jamshedpur (, ) or Tatanagar is the largest and most populous city in Jharkhand and the first planned industrial city in India. It is a Notified Area Council and Municipal Corporation and also the headquarter of the East Singhbhum district. It ...

and

Patna Patna ( ), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...

where he attended missionary schools. He later moved to

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

where he studied English literature, political science and economics at St Xavier’s College, University of Calcutta.

Journalism career

In 1982, he joined '' The Telegraph'' as a sub-editor on the news desk, where he learned editing from

M.J. Akbar Mobasher Jawed Akbar (born 11 January 1951) is an Indian journalist and politician, who served as the Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs until 17 October 2018. Akbar is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, and was inducted int ...

. In 1987, he was invited to join '' The Statesman'' by the paper's then-editor, Sunanda K. Datta-Ray. He became the youngest Assistant Editor in The Statesman’s history. In 1991, he moved to Delhi with a new assignment as Assistant Editor of '' The Pioneer'', then edited by Vinod Mehta. He was promoted to Deputy Editor in 1994. He took a break from journalism from 1995 to 2004. He returned to journalism in 2004, and again joined ''The Pioneer'' for some time, edited by Chandan Mitra. Kanchan Gupta writes on national and regional politics, international affairs and security issues. His weekly column, Coffee Break, appears in ''The Pioneer'' every Sunday. He writes a weekly column for the popular Mumbai daily, ''MidDay''. He participates in Indian television programs on political and national security issues. He is politically conservative, socially liberal. He lives by the precepts of the

Brahmo Samaj Brahmo Samaj ( bn, ব্রহ্ম সমাজ, Brahmô Sômaj, ) is the societal component of Brahmoism, which began as a monotheistic reformist movement of the Hindu religion that appeared during the Bengal Renaissance. It was one o ...

Political career

In December 1995, he gave up full-time journalism to concentrate on a public career and began to assist L.K. Advani and

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...

in their parliamentary work. As an official in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) when the

NDA NDA may stand for: Military * National Defence Academy (India), a military academy in India * National Defence Act, legislation for organizing and funding Canada's military * National Defense Academy of Japan, a military academy in Japan * Nig ...

came to power, he worked in close association with

National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National secu ...

Brajesh Mishra on foreign affairs and security issues. He was the PMO’s representative on the National Security Advisory Board. As part of the Government’s public diplomacy initiative in Arab countries, and to engage and influence opinion-makers and the intelligentsia in the Middle East, Kanchan Gupta was sent to Egypt as director of the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...

. He held this post till 2004. In June 2021, Gupta was appointed Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

References

External links

*
Kanchan Gupta's Personal Blog - Agent Provocateur
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gupta, Kanchan Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Bengali Hindus 20th-century Bengalis 21st-century Bengalis Brahmos Indian journalists Indian newspaper journalists 20th-century Indian journalists 21st-century Indian journalists Indian male journalists Indian columnists Indian bloggers University of Calcutta alumni Writers from Patna Male bloggers Journalists from West Bengal Indian political writers Indian editors Indian activists Indian political journalists Indian opinion journalists Indian foreign policy writers Scholars of Indian foreign policy