Ravi Agrawal is a journalist, television producer, and author of the book India Connected. He is currently the Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine. Previously, Agrawal worked for the U.S. news channel CNN for 11 years, spanning full-time roles on three continents. His most recent position at the network was as CNN's New Delhi Bureau Chief and correspondent. Agrawal now lives in New York City.
Agrawal began working at the Washington, D.C.-based magazine and website in April 2018. He is a frequent commentator on world affairs on CNN International, the BBC, and on NPR.
CNN
New Delhi
From 2014 to 2017, Agrawal managed CNN's multi-platform news gathering in South Asia. File:Ravi in Kolkata.jpg|thumb|Ravi Agrawal reporting from the site of , India in April 2016 File:FP village.jpg|thumb|Ravi Agrawal from rural Uttar Pradesh in India. Agrawal reported regularly on-air for CNN International, and on digital for CNN.com. He covered a breadth of stories from the region, including economics, the environment, foreign policy, caste and gender issues, and breaking news stories. Agrawal reported for CNN International's award-winning Freedom Project series, including a report on child slaves in rural Uttar Pradesh. He produced from New Delhi high-profile interviews with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Barack Obama.File:CNN ABF 2017.jpg|thumb|CNN's , 2017. Ravi Agrawal in conversation with CNN 'SuperHero' Pushpa Basnet Writing about India, Agrawal occasionally contributed to regional newspapers like the South China Morning Post, Singapore's Business Times, and India's Financial Express, in addition to policy essays for think tanks.
From 2011 to 2014, Agrawal lived and worked in New York City. He was the Senior Producer of CNN's Sunday world affairs program Fareed Zakaria GPS. Agrawal was part of the program's 2012 Peabody Award-winning team, as well as its three Emmy nominated programs across 2012 and 2013.
London
Agrawal began his career in TV journalism at CNN International in 2006, where he worked across the network's news and business programs. In 2009, he helped launch the London prime time program Connect the World and served as its senior producer.
Book
Agrawal's India Connected: How the Smartphone is Transforming the World's Biggest Democracy released in September 2018 in India, November 2018 in the United States, and January 2019 in the United Kingdom. A review in the UK's Financial Times described the book as "timely and absorbing" and "hard to put down", while the New Statesman's reviewer Oliver Balch called it "smart, sympathetic, and highly readable." India Today said "most books on India's tech and telecom boom quickly get dated. The stories in India Connected are timeless and will age well into nice snapshots of history." Agrawal has spoken extensively about India Connected in the United States in interviews on CNN, CNN International, CNBC, Bloomberg, Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal, and at public events at the Asia Society, AsiaX, New America, 92Y, Google, Carnegie Endowment, Hudson Institute, Politics and Prose, McNally Jackson, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and more. In India, Agrawal has spoken at the Jaipur Literary Festival, the Kolkata Literary Meet, and the Mumbai Literary Festival, as well as the Godrej Culture Lab in Mumbai, the Takshashila Institute in Bengaluru, and the American Center in New Delhi. Excerpts from India Connected ran in New York magazine and Quartz in 2018. Agrawal's take on India's trajectory has been cited in publications such as the Washington Post, TIME, Axios, Buzzfeed, and more.
Personal
Agrawal was born in London, England and raised in Calcutta, India. After finishing high school in India, he attended college at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, where he worked for The Harvard Crimson. He married Emma Vaughn in 2013. Until 2016, Agrawal was a Young Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum, and has served a two-year term on the group's Global Agenda Council on India. In 2016, Agrawal was named an Asia 21 Young Leader by the Asia Society in New York.
