Life and Contribution of Barkha Dutt Essay

Barkha Dutt was born in India on 18th December 1971 and is a noted TV journalist in India and at present is working for the NDTV. She was born to S. P. Dutt and Prabha Dutt. While her father was an official in Air India, her mother was a Chief of Bureau of the Hindustan Times for quite some time. She had her childhood days in New Delhi and New York. Barkha is indebted for her journalism skills to her mother, Prabha, a pioneer among women journalists in India. But Prabha Dutt died in 1984, when she was in her prime, due to a brain hemorrhage. At that time Barkha was just thirteen. She had her education from the Modern School, New Delhi. This was followed by her graduation in English Literature from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi. After this, she did her Master’s Degree in Mass Communications from Jamia Millia Islamia’s Mass Communication Research Center New Delhi. That was the time NDTV was just about starting and Barkha took up a job with the channel. â€Å"There was no looking back after that,† she says. She was a 1997 winner of the Inlaks Scholarship, which sends six Indians abroad annually for graduate work. Barkha took two years off from work and got a master’s in journalism from University of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, New York. Meeting Barkha, one thinks she is indeed her mother’s daughter. Her mother’s story of war reporting begins years before Barkha was born. At the time of the Indo-Pak war in 1965, Prabha Behl, a bright young reporter with the Hindustan Times, sought permission to cover the war for her newspaper. Those were the subdued sixties and women were still struggling hard to make a place for themselves in a man’s world. The editor said a firm â€Å"No† to Prabha. We don’t send women reporters to the war front. † But Prabha was a competent reporter and she found a way out for herself. She took leave from office and went to stay with her grandparents in Amritsar. Recounting this, Barkha says: â€Å"There, she made contacts and went to the front on her own. She started sending news dispatches from there. And these were so good that the newspaper had no choice but to use them. † There is pride in the daughter’s voice as she tells this. Barkha became a familiar face and the best-known journalist as she was bringing live action home to the living rooms. She was also the first Indian woman journalist to be reporting thus as shells flew past and bullets were being fired. The iconic stature this dare bestowed upon her could have been a heady cocktail and someone more vulnerable to success would have been a part of the Capital’s party circuit with her mug every other day among the Page Three celebrities. Barkha Dutt — Reporting from Kargil It was Barkha Dutt’s frontline reporting of the Kargil conflict in 1999 that made her a household name. From that time the focus of her work has been conflict reporting, covering areas ranging from Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. She is at present the Managing Editor of NDTV 24Ãâ€"7, India’s premiere satellite television network, and also the host of â€Å"We the People†, every week. By this age she has become one of the most influential journalists in the country. Her work has won her over twenty international and national awards, including the Commonwealth Broadcasters Award, 2002, the Global Leader of Tomorrow Award from the World Economic Forum in 2001, and the Broadcast Journalist of the Year award from the Indian Express, in 2005. She also writes a weekly column for The Hindustan Times and The Khaleej Times. However, Kargil has not been the be-all and end-all of this young lady with a nose for news. The Kashmir story has been very close to her heart for that was a place she visited again and again for follow-ups. Barkha says: â€Å"Reporting on Kashmir too is not easy. If you empathize with the Army, you are called a government stooge and if you see the human side of militants, you are labeled anti-national. But a friend told me that if all sides start labeling you then you could be sure that you are doing your work impartially. And that is precisely what happened to me in Kashmir. During the Gujarat riots, Barkha covered the area from Godhra to Baroda at length, following rape victims and others. She recounts a sad incident of those times: â€Å"I saw the helplessness of the people of a particular community. My cameraman Ajmal Jami and I (we have always worked together) were driving down and the mobs stopped our car. I do not believe in religious identity but I had to say that I was a Hindu and invent a Hindu name for Ajmal. † In 2008, the Indian government awarded Dutt the Padma Shri, a civilian honor, for her coverage of the 2004 Tsunami. Barkha also received the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association award for Journalist of the Year, 2007. Her Sunday talk show has won the most awards out of any show on Indian television, 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 twice been named on the list of 100 â€Å"Global Leaders of Tomorrow† compiled by the World Economic Forum (2001, 2008). She has also received Society Magazine Young Achievers Award. In 2010 she was appointed as a 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. Moreover, Barkha Dutt has been portrayed in the film Lakshya, directed by Farhan Akhtar. She was the model for the principal protagonist in the â€Å"The Peddler of Soaps†, a political novel by writer-activist Anand Kurian. In recent times, the role played by Rani Mukherjee in the film No One Killed Jessica is loosely based on her. Barkha Dutt getting Padma Shri from President Patil In November 2010, OPEN magazine carried a story which reported transcripts of some of the telephone conversations of Nira Radia with senior journalists, politicians, and corporate houses, many of whom have denied the allegations. The Central Bureau of Investigation has announced that they have 5,851 recordings of phone conversations by Radia, some of which outline Radia’s attempts to broker deals in relation to the 2G spectrum sale. In one of the tapes Barkha Dutt assures Radia of getting Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress general secretary, to talk to Karunanidhi to get the portfolios in the Union cabinet fixed. Dutt denied acting on any promise to pass on messages to the Congress. In a subsequent tape, Nira Radia is heard saying ‘Barkha has got Congress (political party) to issue a statement’. Dutt denies the allegations. Barkha has quite a few other interests too. She is an outdoor girl who likes swimming and of late she has been doing horse riding too. She had a dream of making documentaries and writing, â€Å"I feel the time for these things will come now when I slow down and leave spot reporting for the younger lot. I love reading fiction and read a lot of it. Maybe I will also some day try writing fiction. † She says this with the conviction of one who has done her job well and would now like to move on and not hold onto what brought her glory. Barkha Dutt’s married life is not disclosed yet in the media. Barkha Dutt personal life is a mystery to her followers. About marriage, she says, â€Å"Well, I could say that I have not come across the right person yet. † After knowing that Preeti loves Hrithik in film Lakshaya, Rani does has boyfriend in No one killed Jessica but Barkha marriage is still a hidden.