December , 2005
20-20 (hind)sight
| 10 |  |
|
 |
I think I cheated Sepoy Shukla on my very first assignment for CNN-IBN. One wintry, early December morning, while I was trying to work up some heat into my veins by stomping around and blowing on my hands, Sepoy K K Shukla walked up to me with scars on his face. I was at Vijay Chowk, across Parliament house, where in a couple of hours from now the Volcker storm would rage again. My orders were simple - once an hour I was to do a live 'chat' with the studio in Delhi. Stand in front of the camera gripping the mic and churn out something reasonably intelligent - "Our correspondent H R Venkatesh is at the Parliament even as we speak. Venkatesh, what can we expect from the opposition today?" You know, that sort of thing, you've seen it enough times on TV. Sepoy K K....
More about H R Venkatesh
H R Venkatesh is News Editor-Anchor at CNN-IBN. He has just returned from the University of Oxford where he completed an M Sc in Contemporary India as a Shell-Chevening Scholar. He has 9 years’ experience in TV news having worked in several positions. He began as a Business Correspondent at CNBC India in Mumbai where he was asked to report on – hold your breath – the cement, steel and shipping industries. Numbed by two years as an ‘old economy’ reporter, he moved to cover sport at Headlines Today in Delhi. As cricket correspondent he travelled with the Indian cricket team for two years. Highlights from this stint include watching Sachin Tendulkar complete his 10,000th test run, interviewing Sourav Ganguly 18 times and Shane Warne at least 15 times (not so much due to his persistence as to the fact that the duo were contractually bound to do the interviews), and watching Australia conquer the final frontier. Numbed yet again, by the realization that the best way to appreciate sport is to NOT report on it, he moved towards covering politics. Along the way, he began presenting news and moved to CNN-IBN as it was preparing to launch in 2005. He spent the next few years anchoring news & special shows, and occasionally foraying into the field, before taking a break to study. Although nobody’s given him a prize for it, he is proud to have been the first Indian to present a podcast – the News Junkie Podcast – online.
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.