February , 2007
The Two Modi(y)s of Gujarat
There are two Mr Modis I know in Gujarat, one spells his surname with an 'i', the other with a 'y'. Mr Narendra Modi is a familiar household name. He is the chief minister of a 'Vibrant Gujarat", his political constituency's "Hindu Hriday Samrat", and the BJP's man in waiting. After more than five years in power, he is the unquestioned leader of the Gujarat BJP and easily the most popular political figure in the state today. In the last five years, he has won every election in the state with a comfortable majority, from panchayat polls to a two third victory in the assembly elections. His face adorns hoardings across the state, his supporters and well-oiled propaganda machine have anointed him Gujarat's modern day Sardar. Truly, in the last five years, Narendra Modi has been catapulted from a relatively faceless RSS pracharak to becoming a larger than life figure....




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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