July , 2008
Trust Vote in Technicolour
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India's first Trust Vote in the age of 24 hour news television transformed parliamentary debate into a reality show. The politicians were the star performers while the nation played judge and audience. The drama in parliament was hilarious and tragic by turn. Lakhs of rupees were suddenly unveiled and scattered on the speaker's table inside the Lok Sabha. The voting technology failed to rise to the occasion. Some members of parliament were wheeled into the house on stretchers. Lalu Prasad Yadav had the House in splits when he confessed his not-so secret desire to be prime minister. Yet a single question remained: is parliamentary democracy being strengthened by what we have observed this week? Take the case of the convicted MPs who were given a week off from their prison cells to come and vote. While there is seemingly no legal bar on a convicted member of parliament....
Amar Chitra Katha
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When the history of contemporary Indian politics is written, Amar Singh will have a special place as arguably the first neta to bridge the gap between political and corporate India, and between page one and page three. Tracking him on the 2004 election campaign was a revealing experience. Through the day, we were traveling across the dusty tracks of interior Uttar Pradesh as the Samajwadi party leader addressed a series of well-attended Thakur samaj rallies. In the evening, we were in the cool comfort of his South Delhi residence where the guest list for dinner included a sprinkling of stars and corporate tycoons. As our camera recorded the private party , I asked Amar Singh how he reconciled the role of neta by day and party animal by night: "I am not a hypocrite," he shot back, with a familiar grin, "If Amitabh and Anil Ambani are my friends, why....
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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