Rajdeep Sardesai

October , 2006

Saturday , October 14, 2006

A revolution gone wrong


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Many years ago, the frenzied search for an elusive soundbite led me to climb a rather perilously shaky electric pole. I clambered with painful desperation in my attempt to enter a fortified hospital room where the Bahujan Samaj party leader, Kanshi Ram was convalescing. The UP assembly was, not for the first time, in suspended animation and the Bahujan Samaj party held the key to the future. When we managed to get past the security cordon, a visibly agitated Kanshi Ram remarked, "I will go with neither the BJP nor the Samajwadi party. Both are manuwaadi forces, one is a python, the other a cobra!" Within 48 hours, the BSP leader had cemented an alliance with the BJP and Mayawati was the first Dalit chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. The flip-flop was quintessential Kanshi Ram. Few Indian politicians have mastered the art of political unpredictability in the manner....


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More about Rajdeep Sardesai

Rajdeep Sardesai is the Editor-in-Chief, IBN18 Network, that includes CNN-IBN, IBN 7 and IBN Lokmat. He comes with 22 years of journalistic experience during which he has covered some of the biggest stories in India and the world. Prior to setting up the IBN network, he was the Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for six years and was the city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26. During the last 22 years, he has covered major national and international stories, specialising in national politics. He has won numerous other awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters Award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for 2007. He has won the Asian Television Award for best talk show for the Big Fight on two occasions and his current flagship show on CNN-IBN, India at 9, has been awarded the best news show at the Asian awards for the last two years. He has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy for seven of the last eight years and won more than 50 awards in this period. He has also been the President of the Editors Guild of India, the only television journalist to hold the post and was chosen a Global leader for tomorrow by the world economic forum in 2000. An alumni of St Xavier's College, Mumbai, he has done his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and has also played first class cricket for the Oxford University team. He has contributed to several books and writes a fortnightly column that appears in seven newspapers.
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