Sagarika Ghose is an Indian journalist, news anchor, columnist and author. She has been a journalist since 1991 and has worked at The Times of India, Outlook and The Indian Express. She was a prime time anchor for BBC World on Question Time India and on the news network CNN-IBN, also being the deputy editor for the latter. Ghose has won several awards in journalism and is the author of two novels, as well as the best-selling biography of Indira Gandhi, . Ghose resigned as deputy editor of CNN-IBN in July 2014. Ghose is a Rhodes Scholar. She is currently the consulting editor of The Times of India.
Ghose has been a journalist since 1991 and has worked at The Times Of India, Outlook magazine and The Indian Express. In 2004 she became the first woman to host Question Time India. She was the deputy editor and a prime time anchor on the news network CNN-IBN. Her writings and broadcasts have earned her popularity and also criticism from right-wing viewers. Ghose's Twitter interview with Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party in 2013 became the first instance of an Indian politician giving a social media interview prior to the polls. Ghose resigned from CNN-IBN on 5 July 2014 after the network was acquired by the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries ltd. She was deputy editor of the channel.
In a show on 9 November 2011, Ghose introduced Hindu spiritual leader Ravi Shankar as "joining us tonight" and asked him several questions, contradicting and criticising his answers. Whenever Ravi Shankar was on screen, "CNN-IBN Live" was shown on the video feed. However, Ravi Shankar was interviewed earlier that day, and his statements were edited and presented as answers to Ghose's live questions. When this was criticised Ghose cited "technical issues", before she and CNN-IBN later gave a formal apology.
Awards and honors
Her show Question Time Didi, an audience based interaction with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and students, from which Banerjee famously stormed out mid-way, received the NT Award for Best Public Debate Show in 2013. She was awarded the Gr8-ITA award for Excellence in Journalism in 2009. Ghose was awarded an Excellence in Journalism Award from FICCI Ladies Organisation in 2005. In 2012 she received the CF Andrews Award for Distinguished Alumnus from St Stephen's College. In 2013, Ghose received the ITA Best Anchor Award from the Indian Television Academy. In 2014, The Rhodes Project included Ghose on a list of 13 famous women Rhodes Scholars. In 2017 Ghose was awarded the C.H.Mohammed Koya National Award for journalism.
Published works
Ghose is the author of two novels, The Gin Drinkers, published in 1998, and Blind Faith, in 2004. The Gin Drinkers was also published in the Netherlands. Ghose published a widely acclaimed biography of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in 2017. The biography is slated to be made into a film. In her 2018 non-fiction book, Why I Am A Liberal: A Manifesto For Indians Who Believe in Individual Freedom, Ghose describes herself as a liberal who believes in rule of law, limited government, robust institutions and individual liberty. Ghose propounds the thesis that although the republic of India was founded as a liberal democracy in 1947, subsequent Indian governments throughout the post-Independence period have sought to attack individual liberty and vastly increase the powers of the government, or the powers of what she calls the Indian 'Big State'.
