Vir Sanghvi
Encyclopedia
Vir Sanghvi (born 5 July 1956) is an India
n print and television journalist, columnist, and talk show host. Currently, he is an Advisor, at HT Media.
At 23, he was the founder-editor of the Bombay magazine, before moving on to edit Imprint, and finally editing Sunday magazine, which he did for over 12 years. He later was appointed editor of the Hindustan Times.
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His journalistic career began in his gap year before Oxford when he started contributing to India Today. He continued writing for the magazine during his vacations and in 1978, the publishers of India Today asked him to start Bombay, India's first city magazine. At that stage, Sanghvi was 22, making him the youngest editor in the history of Indian journalism. The first issue of Bombay appeared in 1979 and though the magazine was an instant success, heralding the start of India's magazine boom, Sanghvi left it in 1981 to live in London for a year. Awarded a travelling fellowship by the Inlaks Foundation, he visited newspapers in the US and the UK for a project on how the western media looked at India. In 1982, he returned to India as editorial director of Business Press, India's largest publisher of trade magazines. While at Business Press, he revamped and reformatted Imprint, one of India's oldest magazines and turned it into a leading features magazine of the 1980s. In 1986, he was appointed editor of Sunday, a newsmagazine brought out by the ABP group. By 1989, Sunday had become India's largest-selling weekly newsmagazine. In 1994, Sanghvi became consulting editor of the ABP group, whose portfolio included -- other than magazines like Sunday and Businessworld -- the two largest papers in eastern India, The Telegraph in English and Ananda Bazar Patrika in Bengali. In 1999, he became editor of the Hindustan Times, the largest-selling English newspaper in Delhi and, over the next two years, launched new editions in Chandigarh, Calcutta, Ranchi, Bhopal and other north Indian cities. At the end of 2003, Sanghvi was appointed editorial director of HT Media Limited, the holding company of Hindustan Times, and it was in this capacity that he launched the paper's stunningly successful Bombay edition in July 2005. His column, Counterpoint, which he began in Sunday, now appears in the Sunday Hindustan Times, and is possibly the most influential political column in the country. He also writes Pursuits -- a column that appears in the weekend section of Mint, the business paper brought out by HT Media.
These apart, Sanghvi is a foodie, writing the inimitable -- and hugely popular -- Rude Food column in Brunch, Hindustan Times' Sunday magazine. A collection of these columns was published by Penguin in 2004 (Rude Food). The book won the international food world's equivalent of the Oscar -- the Cointreau Award for Best Food Literature Book in the world the following year. Alongside, Sanghvi also won the Best Food Critic award from the Indian Culinary Foundation. He did a television version of Rude Food for the Discovery Travel Living channel called A Matter of Taste which was a huge ratings success in India and South East Asia. His show Custom Made for Vir Sanghvi on NDTV Goodtimes, where he travels across India, in search of the most luxurious and bespoke ‘Indian’ experiences also received high ratings and is rumored to renew for a second season.
Sanghvi's TV career began in 1994 on Doordarshan, the state-owned broadcaster. Starting 1996, he hosted a number of programmes for the STAR Network. Among his successes are shows like A Question of Answers, Cover Story and Star Talk. In 2006-07, he anchored two shows for NDTV, India's leading English news channel -- Face the Music and One on One. He was briefly the CEO of NewsX Media but resigned in 2008. He has won innumerable TV awards for his presenting skills at many national and international forums including the Asian Television Awards in Singapore. In 1993, Sanghvi was named a Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum in Davos and he is a member of several important advisory bodies attached to the Indian government, including the prestigious National Integration Council. In 2008, he also received the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Journalism Award, at a nationally televised ceremony. His published books include Rude Food, India – Then and Now and Men of Steel (a collection of profiles of India's leading businessmen) which has been translated into 10 other languages and is a huge best-seller. He has also authored a biography of the late Madhavrao Scindia, which was released by Sonia Gandhi in 2009, in Delhi.
It was claimed that Sanghvi had been lobbied by Radia to show Mukesh Ambani
in a favorable light."
In the audio tape Sanghvi was heard asking "What kind of story do you want?" It is alleged that he made the points suggested by Radia in his article titled 'Time for some transparency' under Sanghvi's column "Counterpoint". Sanghvi denied all allegations and uploaded the article onto his website for readers to make their own judgement. On 27 November 2010, Sanghvi released a detailed statement in the Hindustan Times, clarifying his role, and also raising the possibility of the tapes being edited. Due to the heightened interest in him Sanghvi temporarily suspended his weekly article "Counterpoint".
In October 2011, Sanghvi wrote an article for the Outlook Magazine (the same magazine that carried the tapes), 'Radia Tapes Weren’t Authentic, They Were Manipulated’ reiterating his stance that the tapes had been manipulated or doctored to cause mischief. He uploaded the article onto his website and provided three independent lab reports from the US and the UK which all found clear evidence of tampering..
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n print and television journalist, columnist, and talk show host. Currently, he is an Advisor, at HT Media.
At 23, he was the founder-editor of the Bombay magazine, before moving on to edit Imprint, and finally editing Sunday magazine, which he did for over 12 years. He later was appointed editor of the Hindustan Times.
Early life and education
Vir Sanghvi is an Indian editor and also a television celebrity. Currently, he is Editorial Director of the Hindustan Times. Sanghvi was brought up in Bombay (now Mumbai) and London and educated at Mayo College, Ajmer, and Mill Hill School, London. He won an open scholarship to read politics, philosophy and economics at Brasenose College, Oxford, OxfordOxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
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His journalistic career began in his gap year before Oxford when he started contributing to India Today. He continued writing for the magazine during his vacations and in 1978, the publishers of India Today asked him to start Bombay, India's first city magazine. At that stage, Sanghvi was 22, making him the youngest editor in the history of Indian journalism. The first issue of Bombay appeared in 1979 and though the magazine was an instant success, heralding the start of India's magazine boom, Sanghvi left it in 1981 to live in London for a year. Awarded a travelling fellowship by the Inlaks Foundation, he visited newspapers in the US and the UK for a project on how the western media looked at India. In 1982, he returned to India as editorial director of Business Press, India's largest publisher of trade magazines. While at Business Press, he revamped and reformatted Imprint, one of India's oldest magazines and turned it into a leading features magazine of the 1980s. In 1986, he was appointed editor of Sunday, a newsmagazine brought out by the ABP group. By 1989, Sunday had become India's largest-selling weekly newsmagazine. In 1994, Sanghvi became consulting editor of the ABP group, whose portfolio included -- other than magazines like Sunday and Businessworld -- the two largest papers in eastern India, The Telegraph in English and Ananda Bazar Patrika in Bengali. In 1999, he became editor of the Hindustan Times, the largest-selling English newspaper in Delhi and, over the next two years, launched new editions in Chandigarh, Calcutta, Ranchi, Bhopal and other north Indian cities. At the end of 2003, Sanghvi was appointed editorial director of HT Media Limited, the holding company of Hindustan Times, and it was in this capacity that he launched the paper's stunningly successful Bombay edition in July 2005. His column, Counterpoint, which he began in Sunday, now appears in the Sunday Hindustan Times, and is possibly the most influential political column in the country. He also writes Pursuits -- a column that appears in the weekend section of Mint, the business paper brought out by HT Media.
These apart, Sanghvi is a foodie, writing the inimitable -- and hugely popular -- Rude Food column in Brunch, Hindustan Times' Sunday magazine. A collection of these columns was published by Penguin in 2004 (Rude Food). The book won the international food world's equivalent of the Oscar -- the Cointreau Award for Best Food Literature Book in the world the following year. Alongside, Sanghvi also won the Best Food Critic award from the Indian Culinary Foundation. He did a television version of Rude Food for the Discovery Travel Living channel called A Matter of Taste which was a huge ratings success in India and South East Asia. His show Custom Made for Vir Sanghvi on NDTV Goodtimes, where he travels across India, in search of the most luxurious and bespoke ‘Indian’ experiences also received high ratings and is rumored to renew for a second season.
Sanghvi's TV career began in 1994 on Doordarshan, the state-owned broadcaster. Starting 1996, he hosted a number of programmes for the STAR Network. Among his successes are shows like A Question of Answers, Cover Story and Star Talk. In 2006-07, he anchored two shows for NDTV, India's leading English news channel -- Face the Music and One on One. He was briefly the CEO of NewsX Media but resigned in 2008. He has won innumerable TV awards for his presenting skills at many national and international forums including the Asian Television Awards in Singapore. In 1993, Sanghvi was named a Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum in Davos and he is a member of several important advisory bodies attached to the Indian government, including the prestigious National Integration Council. In 2008, he also received the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Journalism Award, at a nationally televised ceremony. His published books include Rude Food, India – Then and Now and Men of Steel (a collection of profiles of India's leading businessmen) which has been translated into 10 other languages and is a huge best-seller. He has also authored a biography of the late Madhavrao Scindia, which was released by Sonia Gandhi in 2009, in Delhi.
Nira Radia tapes
In 2010, Sanghvi was connected to the Nira Radia tapesRadia tapes controversy
The Radia tapes controversy relates to the telephonic conversations between Nira Radia, a political lobbyist and an acquaintance of the Indian telecom minister A. Raja, and with senior journalists, politicians, and corporate houses, taped by the Indian Income Tax Department in 2008-09. The tapes...
It was claimed that Sanghvi had been lobbied by Radia to show Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
in a favorable light."
In the audio tape Sanghvi was heard asking "What kind of story do you want?" It is alleged that he made the points suggested by Radia in his article titled 'Time for some transparency' under Sanghvi's column "Counterpoint". Sanghvi denied all allegations and uploaded the article onto his website for readers to make their own judgement. On 27 November 2010, Sanghvi released a detailed statement in the Hindustan Times, clarifying his role, and also raising the possibility of the tapes being edited. Due to the heightened interest in him Sanghvi temporarily suspended his weekly article "Counterpoint".
In October 2011, Sanghvi wrote an article for the Outlook Magazine (the same magazine that carried the tapes), 'Radia Tapes Weren’t Authentic, They Were Manipulated’ reiterating his stance that the tapes had been manipulated or doctored to cause mischief. He uploaded the article onto his website and provided three independent lab reports from the US and the UK which all found clear evidence of tampering..
Books By Vir Sanghvi
- Men of Steel - Indias business leaders in candid conversation with Vir Sanghvi, Roli Books Pvt Ltd, India (Jan 2007) ISBN 8-17-436474-7
- Rude Food: The Collected Food Writings of Vir Sanghvi, Penguin Putnam (2004) ISBN 0-14-303139-2
- India Then and Now : Now/Vir Sanghvi. New Delhi, Roli, 2006, 274 p., $120. ISBN 81-7436-397-1.
- 26/11:The Attack on Mumbai, Penguin, 2009, ISBN 9780143067054
- Madhavrao Scindia: A life, Penguin, 2009, ISBN 9780670082544
Further reading
- Vir Sangvi columns Rediff.comRediff.comRediff.com India is a news, information, entertainment, and shopping portal. It was founded in 1996 as "Rediff On The NeT" and is headquartered in Mumbai, India with offices in New Delhi and New York City, USA....
- Vir Sangvi columns MintMint (newspaper)Mint is a business newspaper from HT Media Ltd, launched in collaboration with The Wall Street Journal on 1 February 2007. It is a premium business news publication aimed at decision makers and policy makers of the country and it is the first newspaper in India to be published in the Berliner...
- Vir Sangvi columns Hindustan TimesHindustan TimesHindustan Times is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded in 1924 with roots in the Indian independence movement of the period ....
- Rude Food - The Collected Food Writings of Vir Sanghvi Hindustan TimesHindustan TimesHindustan Times is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded in 1924 with roots in the Indian independence movement of the period ....
- Counterpoint Hindustan TimesHindustan TimesHindustan Times is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded in 1924 with roots in the Indian independence movement of the period ....