January , 2008
Married to the Mob
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Last Saturday, as India was celebrating a famous cricket victory over Australia in Perth, NDTV's Ahmedabad office was ransacked by a mob calling itself Hindu Samrajya Sena. The alleged provocation: an sms poll on the network which asked viewers to vote for painter MF Hussain as a possible Bharat Ratna. Only a week before that, an IBN 7 broadcast van was damaged in Mumbai, allegedly by supporters of Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Their grouse? The channel had questioned the manner in which Thackeray had supported a group of men accused of molestation on New Year's Eve to the home minister. A few months ago, journalists in Patna were attacked after they reported on the possible involvement of a Janata Dal United MLA in a murder case. Last year, the Star News office in Mumbai was badly damaged by another little known group, offended by the channel's coverage....
Why the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year awards
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Who is the greatest filmstar? Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan or Sharukh Khan? Who is the finest Indian batsman of all time? Sunil Gavaskar or Sachin Tendulkar? Who was a better prime minister? Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi or Atal Behari Vajpayee? Fascinating questions, each igniting fierce debate. Comparing stars across generations is tough, but what when you decide to choose between achievers in a calendar year? Frankly, it gets even tougher. Which is why the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2007 promises to be the contest to beat all contests. This is not reality television, this is the real thing: this is, arguably, the most solid recognition of individual achievement in the country. You might turn around and suggest that there are many other awards, so what makes the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year so different? First, it's the nature of the award....
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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