Barkha Dutt

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Barkha Dutt
File:Barkha Dutt World Economic Forum Nov 2010.jpg
Barkha Dutt at the World Economic Forum
Born New Delhi, Delhi, India
Education St. Stephen's College, Delhi
Jamia Millia Islamia
Columbia University
Occupation News Anchor and consulting editor with NDTV
Years active 1991–present
Notable credit(s) We the People
The Buck Stops Here

Barkha Dutt is an Indian television journalist and columnist. She works as a consulting editor with NDTV.[1] Dutt gained prominence for her reportage of the Kargil War.[2] Dutt has won many national and international awards, including the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour.[3] Dutt was one of the journalists taped in the Radia tapes controversy.[4]

Life

Barkha Dutt was born in New Delhi to S. P. Dutt, an official in Air India and Prabha Dutt who was a well-known journalist with the Hindustan Times.[5] Barkha credits her journalism skills to her mother, Prabha, a pioneer among women journalists in India. Prabha Dutt died in 1984 due to a brain haemorrhage.[6] Barkha's younger sister, Bahar Dutt, is also a television journalist working for CNN IBN.[6]

Career

Barkha graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi with a degree in English literature. She received a Master's in Mass Communications from Jamia Millia Islamia Mass Communication Research Center, New Delhi. She started her journalism career with NDTV and later rose to head the English news wing of the organisation. She also obtained a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, New York assisted by an Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation scholarship.[7] Her reporting of the Kargil conflict in 1999, including an interview with Captain Vikram Batra, brought her to prominence in India.[2][8] She has since covered conflicts in Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.[9]

While covering the events of 2002 Gujarat violence, Barkha Dutt identified attackers and victims of a riot as "Hindus" and "Muslims" on television, flouting the guidelines of the Press Council of India.[10] Varadarajan wrote that it was improper on part of Barkha Dutt to recognise a politically mobilised mob as "Hindus".[10]

In the 2012 book Corruption Free India: Fight to Finish, Yasir Hussain described Barkha Dutt as a "controversial" and a "pro Sonia Gandhi" journalist.[11] Britta Ohm wrote in 2011 that Dutt has attracted "substantial criticism" over the past few years for her various aspects of her reporting.[12] Ohm wrote that Dutt is criticised for "secular shrillness", betraying the cause of Kashmiri Pandits, over-the-top nationalism in the reporting of Kargil conflict, and for soft-pedalling Hindutva.[12]

Dutt who was group editor of NDTV moved to the role of consulting editor in February 2015[13]

2008 Mumbai attacks coverage

Dutt was criticised for her coverage of 2008 Mumbai attacks, during which she reported from Taj Mahal Hotel and Oberoi Trident.[14] She was blamed for sensationalising the events, putting lives at risk and causing deaths by identifying on live television where the hotel guests might be located.[14] Writing for the New York Times, Lydia Polgreen wrote that critics viewed Dutt and some other reporters as extremely "theatrical and melodramatic" in their coverage of the 2008 attacks.[15] A blogger, Chaitanya Kunte, who had criticized Barkha Dutt's reporting was served legal notice by her,[16][17] and coerced to take down his blog.[16]In a 2012 interview with Madhu Trehan, Dutt defended herself against Kunte's criticism and of others who questioned her coverage of the 2008 Mumbai siege, and accepted that she did send a legal notice to Kunte.[18]

Radia tapes controversy

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Further information: Radia tapes controversy

In November 2010, the magazines OPEN and Outlook published transcripts of some telephone conversations between Nira Radia with some senior journalists, politicians, and corporates.[11][19] The Central Bureau of Investigation announced that they had 5,851 recordings of phone conversations by Radia, some of which outline Radia's attempts to broker deals in relation to the 2G spectrum sale.[20] Barkha Dutt's conversations with Radia were reported and Dutt became the face of the tapes scandal.[15] On 30 November 2010, Dutt defended herself before a jury of her peers in a televised program on NDTV.[15] Dutt apologised over the issue saying it was "an error of judgement" on her part, but said that she had not indulged in any wrongdoing.[1]

Book

Dutt has co-authored the chapter "'Nothing new?':Women as Victims" in the book Gujarat:The making of a tragedy, edited by Siddharth Varadarajan and published by Penguin (ISBN 978-0143029014). The book is about the 2002 Gujarat riots. Barkha later wrote a book "The Uniquet Land" which was released in December 2015.[21]

Awards and accolades

Barkha Dutt's Sunday talk show has won the most awards out of any show on Indian television, winning the Indian Television Academy award for Best Talk Show five years in a row. In 2012, the Association for International Broadcasting awarded Barkha Dutt the title of "TV Personality of the year" with the following citation: "a reporter of considerable stretch and depth, still passionate and fearless in bringing the issues closer to her viewers."[22][23] Dutt was the recipient of the C H Mohammed Koya National Journalism Award in 2009.[24] In 2008, Dutt received the Indian News Broadcasting Award for the Most Intelligent News Show Host.[25] Dutt received the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association award for Journalist of the Year, 2007.[26] She was awarded "Best TV News Anchor (English) for her programme "We the people" at the first Indian News Television Awards in 2007.[27]

In 2008, the Indian government awarded Barkha Dutt the Padma Shri, a civilian honour, for her coverage of the 2004 Tsunami.[3][28]

She has twice been named on the list of 100 "Global Leaders of Tomorrow" compiled by the World Economic Forum (2001, 2008).[29] In 2005, she was among 50 Indians who were 35 or younger and listed for their achievements and impact on society.[30]

In 2010 she was appointed as a member of India's National Integration Council.[31][32] She was named an Asia Society Fellow in 2006 and serves on the International Advisory Council of the Asia Society.[33]

Portrayal in popular culture

As per movie reviewers and critics, Dutt has been a model for the portrayal of journalist characters in several Hindi movies. Some of these are –

  • In the 2004 movie Lakshya, Preity Zinta played a female journalist reporting on the 1999 Kargil Conflict.[34][35]
  • In the 2006 Malayalam Movie Keerthi Chakra, one of the journalist character was based on Barkha Dutt. The protagonist Mohanlal gets angry for talking pictures in a sensitive war area. In an earlier incident because of the flash photography by the journalist one of the soldiers was killed.
  • In the 2008 movie Firaaq, a TV viewer is shown responding to Dutt's commentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots as "They [English speaking news reporters] all tell lies ... where were they when the Hindus were being killed".[36]
  • In the 2010 satire Peepli Live, the character of the news anchor was modelled on Sagarika Ghose or Barkha Dutt, according to movie critic Raja Sen.[37] Sen wrote that in the movie, the news anchor only cared about TRPs and "squealed inexplicably in English" even when her subject was Hindi-speaking central India.
  • In the 2011 movie No One Killed Jessica, Rani Mukerji played a news reporter who is first seen in the movie reporting on the 1999 Kargil Conflict is portraying Barkha Dutt's character.

Dutt was the model for the protagonist in Anand Kurian's novel, The Peddler of Soaps.[38]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Independence Day Thoughts, RaghuKrishnan, The Economic Times, 24 August 2003, accessed on 22 January 2012
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.[dead link]
  8. ↑ Rajdeep Sardesai, Vinod Dua and Barkha Dutt Conferred Padma Shri, MediaWire, 27 January 2008, accessed on 22 January 2012
  9. ↑ Three top TV news anchors get Padma Shri, bollywood.com (IANS), 2008, accessed on 22 January 2012
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/barkha-dutt-moves-to-consulting-editor-ndtv-group-740019
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ http://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/to-even-the-odds-on-pollution-check-arvind-kejriwal-to-pool-cars-1253134
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ [1][dead link]
  33. ↑ [2] Archived 23 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.[dead link]
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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