Vice President - IBDF (News & Current Affairs)
Chairman, India TV
Rajat, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of India TV, is best known for his popular show ‘Aap Ki Adalat’. With his trademark smile, Rajat has grilled over 750 personalities in India’s longest running television show, which got him the Indian Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. Before moving to television, Rajat made a mark with his distinguished 10-year stint in print media. His transition from a successful print editor to an international television personality, and from a ‘manager-entrepreneur’ to an ‘entrepreneur-manager’ presents a unique story in Indian media.
In 1995, Rajat created history by launching India’s first private television news bulletin, which was beamed across satellite footprints in Asia, Europe and North Africa. When Rajat launched India TV, no one had imagined that in four years, it would become India’s number one news channel. A survey by the Hindi daily Hindustan named Rajat as the “Hero” of the Indian media industry.
Under Rajat’s leadership, India TV has created benchmarks in innovation, impact, ratings, time spends and viewer support. India TV’s newsbreaks have inspired talk shows on rival channels, Bollywood films, BBC documentaries, articles in Time magazine and even Amul hoardings. The channel’s popularity is the result of Rajat leading the way on the lonely path of “credibility first”, keeping both his feet firmly to the ground, and upholding viewer’s interest as paramount.