Anita Anand (journalist)


Anita Anand is a British-Indian radio and television presenter, journalist, and author.

Early life and education

Anand was born in London, England, to Punjabi Sikh parents who migrated to India shortly after the partition of India and then, later, to the UK. Her family, prior to the partition, originated from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in present-day Pakistan.
Anand was privately educated at Bancroft's School in Woodford Green in Redbridge, east London. Anand then entered King's College London in 1990, graduating with a BA in English in 1993.

Broadcasting career

After training as a journalist, Anand became European Head of News and Current Affairs for Zee TV, and one of the youngest TV news editors in Britain at the age of 25. She presented the talk show The Big Debate and was political correspondent for Zee TV presenting the Raj Britannia series – 31 documentaries chronicling the political aspirations of the Asian community in the most marginal constituencies in 1997.
Until October 2007, Anand presented in the 10:00 pm till 1:00 am slot on Monday to Thursdays on BBC Radio 5 Live. She went on to co-present the station's weekday Drive slot with Peter Allen, having replaced Jane Garvey in 2007. Aasmah Mir replaced her when she left for maternity leave.
Anand has presented the BBC Radio 4 show Midweek, and on television she has been a presenter on the Heaven and Earth Show. She has co-presented the Daily Politics on BBC Two with Andrew Neil from September 2008, with a break for maternity leave from January to September 2010.
Anand has also written articles for India Today and The Asian Age newspaper, and used to write a regular column in The Guardian.
In July 2011 Anand left the Daily Politics to present a new show called Double Take on Radio 5 Live on Sunday mornings. In June 2012, Anand took over from Jonathan Dimbleby as the presenter of Radio 4's Any Answers? Saturday current affairs phone-in programme between 2:00 and 2:30 pm.

Author

Anand's book Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary was published in 2015. She also presented Sophia, Suffragette Princess, a 30-minute television documentary programme based on the book, which aired first on BBC One in late November 2015.
She is co-author with William Dalrymple of . The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge and the Raj appeared in April 2019 and relates to the Amritsar massacre of 1919.

Awards

On 18 November 2005, Anand won the Nazia Hassan Award for 2005 in the category of Upcoming Television Broadcasters.

Personal life

Anand married science writer Simon Singh in 2007. The couple have two sons and live in south-west London.