Rajdeep Sardesai


Rajdeep Sardesai is an Indian news anchor and author. He is a consulting editor at the India Today group, and hosts the 9:00 p.m prime time show on India Today Television. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Global Broadcast News, that included CNN-IBN, IBN7 and IBN-Lokmat; he resigned in July 2014.

Early life

Sardesai was born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat to a Goan father and a Gujarati mother. His father, Dilip Sardesai, was a former Indian Test cricketer and his mother, Nandini, is an activist in Mumbai and former head of the Department of Sociology at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. He completed his schooling up to ICSE from the Campion School, Mumbai, and did two years of ISC at The Cathedral & John Connon School, Mumbai. Thereafter he graduated in economics from the St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. He then went to University College, Oxford, earning the degrees of Master of Arts, and Bachelor of Laws.
While at Oxford he made six first-class cricket appearances for Oxford University and one for a combined Oxford and Cambridge side against the 1987 Pakistani touring team. He was awarded a cricket Blue at Oxford.

Career

Sardesai worked with The Times of India for six years, after joining it in October 1988, and was the city editor of its Mumbai edition. He entered television journalism in 1994 as Political Editor of New Delhi Television. He was the Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both. He hosted popular shows like The Big Fight at NDTV.
He quit NDTV on 17 April 2005 to start his own company, Global Broadcast News, in collaboration with the American giant CNN and Raghav Bahl's TV18. The latter broadcasts the Indian Edition of CNBC called CNBC-TV18, the Hindi consumer channel, CNBC Awaaz and an international channel, SAW. The new channel with Sardesai as the Editor-in-Chief was named CNN-IBN. It went on air on 17 December 2005. Channel 7 has also come under this umbrella after Sardesai's company bought a 46 percent stake in the channel. Channel 7 was later renamed IBN7.
On 29 May 2014, Reliance Industries Ltd announced it would be acquiring control in Network 18 Media & Investments Ltd, the parent of CNN-IBN, IBN7 and CNBC-TV18. The board of RIL approved funding of up to to Independent Media Trust, of which RIL is the sole beneficiary, for acquisition of control in Network 18 and its subsidiaries. Subsequently, on 1 July 2014,Rajdeep,editor-in-chief of CNN IBN along with the entire founding team - editorial and managerial - resigned from the Network18 group.
Sardesai and others were acquitted by a Hyderabad court in November 2019 after issuing an unconditional apology to IPS officer Rajiv Trivedi for false reporting on Sohrabuddin's alleged encounter killing case.

Personal life

He is married to journalist and author Sagarika Ghose. Rajdeep and Sagarika have two children, son Ishan, and daughter Tarini.

Awards