Shekhar Gupta is an Indian journalist and author. He is the founder and the current editor-in-chief of ThePrint. He is also a columnist for the Business Standard and pens a weekly column which appears every Saturday. He was earlier the vice chairman of the India Today Group. Until June 2014, he served 19 years as editor-in-chief of the Indian Express. Gupta writes a weekly column called "National Interest" for India Today magazine. His "National Interest" columns for the Indian Express were collected in his 2014 book Anticipating India. He also hosted an interview-based television showWalk the Talk on NDTV 24x7. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2009 by the Government of India for his contribution to journalism and was elected President of the Editor's Guild of India in 2018.
Early life and career
Shekhar Gupta initially studied for three years in Saraswati Shishu Mandir, an RSS school in Palwal, then in Punjab. He completed his Bachelor of Journalism at Panjab University. He started his career as a journalist working for the Indian Express in 1977. He worked at the Indian Express for 6 years and then resigned to join India Today where he covered Operation Bluestar, the Nellie Massacre in Assam and the Gulf War in 1991. He then resigned from India Today to join the Indian Express as Editor-in-Chief and CEO. He also hosted the show, "Walk The Talk with Shekhar Gupta" for NDTV for 15 years in which he has over 600 guests. He resigned from Indian Express in 2015 and joined India Today for a brief period of 2 months. Currently he is editor-in-chief and founder of ThePrint, which was launched in August 2017. Gupta has stated that the mission for ThePrint is to be "factual and liberal".
Awards and honors
Shekhar Gupta has received assorted awards: the 1985 Inlaks award for young journalist of the year, G. K. Reddy Award for Journalism, and the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Memorial Award for Nation. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by the then UPA Government in 2009 for his contribution to journalism. Under his leadership, The Indian Express won the Vienna-based International Press Institute’s Award for Outstanding Journalism in the Public Interest thrice: The first time for its coverage of the Gujarat riots of 2002, the second time for uncovering the Bihar flood relief scam in 2009 and the third time for its sustained investigation into the Malegaon and Modasa blasts of 2008 and the alleged role of extremists and organisations.
Controversies
In April 2019, Shekhar Gupta was one of the three journalists mentioned in the supplementary charge-sheet of AgustaWestland chopper deal scam. Enforcement Directorate alleged that the main accused Christian Michel accepted that he through a middlemen paid Shekhar Gupta to "tone down" an article related to the deal in the Indian Express. The chargesheet of ED was leaked to the media in April 2019 just few days before the national elections. Delhi High court sent a notice to ED about the leaks. It was Shekhar Gupta and Manu Pubby from Indian Express who brought this AgustaWestland scam into the public domain and the deal was cancelled by then UPA government after Indian Express exposed the scam.
