Karan Thapar


Karan Thapar is an Indian journalist and television commentator and interviewer, working with The Wire. He was associated with CNN-IBN and hosted The Devil's Advocate and The Last Word. He was also associated with India Today and hosted the shows To the Point and Nothing But The Truth.

Early life and education

Karan Thapar is the youngest child of former Chief of the Army Staff General Pran Nath Thapar and Bimla Thapar. The journalist Romesh Thapar and the historian Romila Thapar are his cousins.
Thapar is also related distantly to the family of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru's niece, the writer Nayantara Sahgal, was married to Gautam Sahgal, brother of Bimla Thapar, his mother.
He is an alumnus of The Doon School in Dehradun and the Stowe School. While at Doon, Thapar was the Editor-in-chief of the school magazine The Doon School Weekly. He graduated with a degree in Economics and Political Philosophy from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1977. In the same year, he was also President of the Cambridge Union. He subsequently obtained a doctorate in International Relations from St Antony's College, Oxford.

Career

He began his career in journalism with The Times in Lagos, Nigeria and later worked as their Lead Writer on the Indian subcontinent till 1981. In 1982 he joined London Weekend Television in the United Kingdom where he worked for the next 11 years. He moved to India in 1991 and worked with The Hindustan Times Television Group, Home TV and United Television before setting up his own production house in August 2001, Infotainment Television, which makes programmes for amongst others BBC, Doordarshan and Channel News Asia. He is currently the President of Infotainment Television.
Thapar is noted for his aggressive interviews with leading politicians and celebrities. A few of his shows which have been much watched are Eyewitness, Tonight at 10, In Focus with Karan, Line of Fire, War of Words Devil's Advocate and The Last Word. In 2007, Thapar famously interviewed current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Modi stopped the interview just three minutes in, refusing to continue.
In April 2014, Thapar quit CNN-IBN to joined India Today, where he hosted the show titled To the Point and Nothing But The Truth.
He also writes for The Indian Express, a leading Indian daily, as a columnist.

Awards and accolades