Prema Sridevi


Prema Sridevi is an Indian journalist. She was associated with The Times Group for 12 years until 2016, becoming News Editor of its English news channel Times Now. She joined Republic TV in 2017 as editor for news and special projects, and resigned in 2019 to start her own independent news media venture.

Education

Prema Sridevi was born in Bangalore, Karnataka and is originally from Kerala. She attended Mount Carmel College, Bangalore and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. She continued her education and earned her Master of Arts degree at Commits Institute of Journalism and Mass Communication, Bangalore.

Career

Prema Sridevi Joined Times Now in June 2005 prior to the channel's launch on 23 January 2006 in partnership with Reuters. She worked as bureau chief for its Kerala division until 2010, when she moved to their New Delhi division to work as a news correspondent under editor in chief Arnab Goswami. She resigned in 2016 to join Goswami’s news venture Republic TV as head of the special investigations team. She later became its editor of news and special projects. She resigned in 2019 to start her own news media venture.

Reportage

Times Now

While with Times Now, Prema became known for her series of news coverage on the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, an ongoing criminal case in the Gujarat state of India, in which the Ahmedabad Crime Branch and members of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau of Ahmedabad were accused of jointly having carried out a staged "encounter killing" of four people on 15 June 2004.
Her story on Operation Rajya sabha, on how Rajya sabha seats in the Karnataka elections was up for sale was taken note by the Election Commission of India.

Republic TV

When with Republic TV, Sridevi wrote a series of stories on the mysterious death of Sunanda Pushkar an Indian businesswoman and the wife of Indian former diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor. Republic TV broadcast her taped conversations with Sunanda Pushkar and Sunanda’s assistant Narayan Singh; her former employer, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., lodged a complaint against her and Arnab Goswami accusing them of copyright infringement.
Prema Sridevi is also noted for the sting operations on men allegedly belonging to the ISIS India network on May 2017. Her sting of the ISIS operatives in May 2017, which was aired on Republic TV was taken note by the National Investigation Agency. The NIA requested her to share the video tape of the sting operation and after a year the NIA went onto arrest one of the ISIS operatives Abdullah Basit who was stung by Prema Sridevi. The NIA also conducted the voice samples of the journalist and the ISIS operative. The matter is now before the honourable court.
Sridevi’s story titled “The Vadra Papers” exposed the alleged tax evasion of Robert Vadra’s firm. Following the story, Robert Vadra sent a legal notice to Prema Sridevi and Republic TV’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami over "defamatory statements" made against his firm.
Prema's follow up investigations of Bofors scandal led to a revealing interview with Michael Hershman, who is the President of the Fairfax Group and who co-founded Transparency International, in which he hinted to Prema Sridevi that powerful politicians exist in India who risk being identified in Bofors Scandal. Hershman had also claimed in the interview that the Indian Government had paid him 100,000 dollars via wire transfer for conducting the probe.