Vikram Chandra is an Indian TV journalist and technology expert, who is the founder of Editorji Technologies. He was the CEO of NDTV Group from 2011 to October 2016. He is considered among the leading journalists in India today. Chandra's reputation as a journalist was built while covering the Kashmir conflict. He is the former anchor for the Nine O'Clock News and was, until recently, host of Gadget Guru and anchor of The Big Fight.
Early life and career
Vikram Chandra's mother Nandini Chandra was a journalist with The Hindustan Times. He is an alumnus of The Doon School, where he was the editor of The Doon School Weekly. After his secondary education, Chandra received his bachelor's degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He also studied at Oxford on an Inlaks Scholarship. He studied mass media at Stanford University for a three-month period. He is married to Seema Chandra. Chandra, son of an IAS Mr. Yogesh Chandra, began his career in television journalism in 1991 working with a TV news magazine called Newstrack. He has been with New Delhi Television Limited since 1994. During these years, he worked on the prime time9 O'Clock News, Gadget Guru, which was a review show about new technologies. He is best known for his award-winning anchor position on The Big Fight, which is one of India's top rated talk and current affairs shows. In 2007, he was named CEO of NDTV Networks. He added NDTV Convergence to his portfolio in 2009. From 2011 to October 2016, he was CEO of the NDTV group. He resigned from NDTV in 2016 to found and was replaced as NDTV CEO by K V Narayan Rao who had already had one stint as NDTV's CEO in the past. Vikram Chandra continued his association with NDTV as a guest anchor until April 2019, and then devoted himself full time to his own startup named . In August 2019, he was booked, along with the NDTV co-founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, by CBI for alleged FDI norms violation. Chandra's first work of fiction, the thriller The Srinagar Conspiracy, was published in 2000 and became a best seller. Chandra received acclaim for his familiarity with Kashmir, where the book is set, and his use of the English language.
Notable assignments
As a reporter, Chandra was assigned to Kashmir, where he reported on war and conflict. Chandra had an exclusive footage of the army camps at the Saltoro Heights in Siachen. As the anchor of The Big Fight, Chandra has interviewed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2006, Bill Gates in 2012, Shimon Peres, and Rupert Murdoch. He also interviewed Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc. in May 2016, during the latter's visit to India. In 2018, he interviewed former U.S. Vice-PresidentAl Gore during the World Economic Forum in Davos. Chandra has been active in public interest media campaigns in India. He has worked on several "Greenathons," which is a media campaign to expand the electrical system to rural areas and finance solar lanterns to bring light to homes. He has also been active in the "Save our Tigers" campaign to stop poaching. He is also very popular among scholars for his significant contribution to various social and political themes.
Awards
In 2007, Chandra received the designation "Global Leader for Tomorrow" from the World Economic Forum in Davos when he was selected as a "Young Global Leader." He has twice won the Hero Honda Indian Television Academy Award for Best Anchor for a Talk Show for The Big Fight in 2005 and 2008 and the Teacher's Achievement Award for Communication, amongst other coveted recognitions.
