Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an Indian journalist, political commentator, author and a documentary film maker. His works have appeared in print, radio, television and documentaries. He is also a regular guest faculty member at a number of top educational institutions like the Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Shillong, the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Asian College of Journalism and Jamia Millia Islamia. Guha Thakurta was appointed Editor of the Economic and Political Weekly in January 2016 replacing C Rammanohar Reddy, who steered the prestigious journal since 2004. Guha Thakurta resigned as editor of EPW on July 18, 2017 over alleged differences with the board of the Sameeksha Trust that runs the journal. Guha Thakurta co-authored an article about the Adani Group's tax evasion following which Adani Power sent a legal notice to the Economic and Political Weekly. Fearing an expensive lawsuit by one of India’s biggest corporate houses EPW then decided to take down the article, prompting Paranjoy Guha Thakurta's resignation.
Career
Guha Thakurta was educated at La Martiniere Calcutta, pursued his undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College and completed his masters from Delhi School of Economics in 1977. With the Emergency of 1975-77, he decided to be a journalist over being a lecturer. In June 1977, he joined a Kolkata-based magazine as assistant editor. Through his career spanning over 30 years, he has been associated with major media houses like Business India, Businessworld, The Telegraph, India Today and The Pioneer. He also hosted the chat show India Talks on CNBC-India which ran over 1400 episodes. In 2013, he directed a short documentary film Coal Curse which highlighted the wrongs in the Indian coal mining industry. The 45-minute film, supported by Greenpeace, delved into the political economy of coal in contemporary India with the Singrauli example serving as a case study. This was Guha Thakurta's second film on coal, the earlier one being 'Hot as hell: Why Jharia is burning', that was produced in 2006 by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust. His 2014 book Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis, co-authored with Subir Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri, dealt with alleged irregularities of the prices of natural gas in the Indian market. Reliance Industries Limited, one of India's major conglomerates which is also involved in oil and gas exploration and production, sent a legal notice to Guha Thakurta and others for defamation through this book. In 2016, he joined EPW as Editor. Following his article on how Adani Group was benefited by the government policies, a defamation notice was sent to the Sameeksha Trust and the authors of the article. Soon after that, Guha Thakurta resigned as the Editor of EPW. The article brought to light how the Government tweaked the rules which favoured a certain company within the Adani Group to the tune of Rs 500 Crores. EPW tried to reach out to Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Industry and Commerce, but no explanation was given for this policy decision. The Adani Group is headed by Gautam Adani who is understood to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Paid news
Guha Thakurta was a member of the sub-committee set up by the Press Council of India to look into the malaise of paid news. Initially, the report titled '‘Paid News: How Corruption in the Indian Media Undermines Democracy" was to be released on 26 April 2010, but it was deferred after many members of the Council raised objections. A diluted version of the report, which was released on 30 July 2010, raised a storm. A number of newspaper establishments were named as having indulged in editorial malpractices. These included Bennett, Coleman and Co, HT Media, Dainik Jagaran, Dainik Bhaskar, Punjab Kesari, Lokmat, Eenadu, and Sakshi group, among others. In September 2010, the Central Information Commission of India directed the Council to make public the report as part of suo motu disclosure mandated under the Right to Information Act. Guha Thakurta has since written extensively on the issue of "paid news". In a December 2013 article for First Post, he explained why the malaise of "paid news" is a threat to democracy:
Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis, 2014 Paranjoy Guha Thakurta; co-authors Subir Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri,.
Sue the Messenger: How legal arm-twisting by corporates is shackling reportage and undermining democracy in India; co-author with Subir Ghosh; 2016 Paranjoy and Authors UpFront,.
