Barkha Dutt (born December 18, 1971) is an
Indian
TV journalist and columnist. She is
currently Group Editor, English News at
New Delhi Television.
Dutt gained prominence for her reportage of the
Kargil War. She has won many national and
international awards, including the
Padma
Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour. She writes a
popular column for The Hindustan Times, called "Third Eye."However,
she has also come in for criticism that her reporting is
sensationalist and melodramatic.
Early life
Barkha Dutt was born in New Delhi in a Punjabi family.
She studied at
Modern School,
New Delhi
, 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 and a Master's in Journalism from
Columbia University, New York.She was
one of the winners of the prestigious
Inlaks
Scholarship, which sends 6 Indians overseas to study every
year.
Career
As a journalist, Dutt began her career at NDTV when it was a TV
production house creating news programmes and providing content to
Star TV. Later, NDTV created its own independent news and content
channels, and Barkha Dutt rose to be its Managing Editor for
English News. She is currently Group Editor-English News.
Dutt's reporting of the
Kargil conflict
in 1999, including an interview with Captain
Vikram Batra, brought her to prominence in
India. She has since covered conflicts in Kashmir, Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Iraq. She won a
Padma
Shri for her coverage of the 2004 Tsunami and Commonwealth
Broadcasters Award for Journalist of the Year. Her Sunday talk show
has won the most awards for any show across television channels,
winning the Indian Television Academy award for Best Talk Show five
years in a row. In 2008, Dutt received the Indian News Broadcasting
Award for the Most Intelligent News Show Host. She has been awarded
the Global Leader of Tomorrow Award twice by the World Economic
Forum (2001, 2008). She has also received Society's Young Achievers
Award.
She is a nominated member of India's National Integration Council. She was also Asia Society Fellow in 2006 and serves on the International Advisory Council of the Asia Society. In an SMS survey of the readers of the Hindi daily Hindustan, Dutt won the second place in the "Media Leaders" category. Several Bollywood films have drawn from Barkha's profile, most notably Priety Zinta who played "Romila Dutta' in Lakshya.
Criticism
Dutt's reporting of the
Kargil conflict
was criticized by The
Indian Navy Chief
Admiral
Sureesh Mehta who insinuated
that she may have compromised the security of the troops by giving
away troop locations. Dutt denied these charges, claiming that
former Army chief Gen
VP Malik's book had
indicated otherwise. General Malik had been Chief of Army Staff
during the Kargil conflict.
Dutt, according to many publications, was the journalist who came
in for the most criticism for sensationalist coverage, after the
Mumbai Terror Attacks. Further,
according to Vanity Fair Magazine, Barkha Dutt's reports were used
by terrorist handlers in Pakistan to relay orders back to those in
Mumbai.. NDTV issued a legal notice to a blogger Chetan Kunte
"Shoddy Journalism"
[190371] for "abusive free speech" for a post
criticizing their coverage of the Mumbai attacks. The blogger
unconditionally withdrew his post, replacing it with legal
undertaking and an admission that his post had been "defamatory and
untrue" which resulted in several Indian bloggers criticizing NDTV
for trying to silence critics.
Sevanti Ninan, well known media critic, accused Barkha Dutt of
being representative of the popular malaise afflicting the news
media in terms being an assembly line anchor.
References
External links
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