Editorial Assistant, Perspective, Kolkata, July 1977 to February 1979:
- He started his journalistic career in the now-defunct monthly edited by Bhabani Sen Gupta where he learnt different aspects of reporting, editing and production. He wrote a variety of articles on economics, politics, and reviewed films.
Kolkata Correspondent, Business India, Mumbai, March 1979 to February 1981:
He was the first full-time correspondent in the eastern region for what was then India’s largest-selling business periodical. He reported on various industries and companies based in the eastern and northeastern region and contributed to long features on political donations and the coal mining sector. He also wrote special reports on the paper, tea, and printing industries.
Kolkata Correspondent, Businessworld, Mumbai, February 1981 to June 1982:
He joined the fortnightly magazine from its inception and wrote at least six cover stories including ones on the steel industry, the tea industry, and the coal mining mafia of Dhanbad. During this period, he also wrote for sister publications of the Anandabazar group like Sunday, Business Standard and Ravivar.
Staff Correspondent, The Telegraph, Kolkata, July 1982 to August 1983:
He joined the daily newspaper from its inception and worked first, for its business section and then, in the city reporting section. He covered news about the state government, crime in the state and city and wrote articles on theatre and cinema. He broke a series of stories on the human skeletons export business in Kolkata.
Deputy Editor/Assistant Editor/Senior Correspondent, Update/Business Update, Mumbai, September 1983 to September 1988, based first in Kolkata and then in New Delhi:
- He wrote on a range of business and economy related subjects for this periodical and conducted interviews with the then Finance Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh. He authored or co-authored several reports on stock market malpractices and investor grievances.
During this period, he wrote on a freelance basis for other newspapers and magazines such as the Illustrated Weekly of India (including an interview with the then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu), The Statesman, The Times of India, The Financial Express, The Hindu, Business Standard, Sunday, The Daily, Debonair, and other publications. He reviewed films and videos on a weekly basis for the Sunday Observer.
Principal Correspondent, India Today, October 1988 to June 1991.
- He wrote mainly for the business and economy sections of India’s largest-selling fortnightly magazine (at that time) and was overall in charge of the section for a year in 1990-91. His published articles include four major reports on inflation (including contributing to a cover story on a scandal relating to sugar supplies in 1989), a special report on the unfulfilled promises of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, another one on the 1988-89 controversy over the Indian Navy’s purchase of German submarines, besides articles on the Union budget, tax evasion cases against large corporations and fiscal development. He also wrote a long article in October 1990 on the impending cable television boom.
- He travelled to Kuala Lumpur in 1990 with Prime Minister V P Singh to write on the G-15 summit and on Indians in Malaysia. He also travelled extensively in the US for over a month as part of a study tour on the American economy conducted by the US Government.
After leaving India Today and before joining The Pioneer (preceding the launch of the newspaper’s edition in Delhi in December 1992), he wrote over eight articles for Sunday weekly, including two cover stories, one on the devaluation of the rupee in June 1991 and the other a month later, on the presentation of the P V Narasimha Rao government’s first budget and new industrial policy (the latter cover story included an exclusive interview with Manmohan Singh). During this period, he also contributed regularly to Inter-Press Service (IPS) news agency.
Business Editor/Deputy Editor (Business), The Pioneer, New Delhi, July 1991 to September 1995.
- He headed the business section of the daily newspaper that comprised 8-10 journalists and was directly responsible for all activities related to news gathering, writing of articles and production of two business pages. Was also responsible for news reports, features, editorials, and analytical stories related to the economy and business (including the corporate sector and stock markets), which appeared on the front page and other pages/sections of the newspaper.
- He wrote over one hundred bylined articles in The Pioneer. These included a series of exclusive stories on one of India’s biggest stock-market scandal and the inquiry into it by a parliamentary committee (mid-1992 to late-1994), a series of over twenty stories including news breaks (with Shankar Raghuraman) on the 1994 sugar import scandal which led to the resignation of former Union Food Minister Kalpnath Rai, besides various macro-economic and corporate sector stories as well as one-on-one interviews with the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh and important personalities from the corporate sector.
- In addition, he wrote over 30 articles in The Pioneer that were not on business/economic subjects; these included stories/reviews on popular music, media and politics.
In November 1992, he was part of the then Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s media contingent on his official tour to the northern-most and western-most points of Africa: Tunis, Tunisia (to meet Yasser Arafat) and Dakar, Senegal (for the summit of the Group of 15 developing countries). In 1994, he travelled to Brussels, Frankfurt, Bonn, Paris, London, Birmingham for over a month as part of a visitors’ programme of the European Community to study, among other subjects, intellectual property rights and subsidies to farmers.
Editor, Economic and Political Weekly (April 2016-17:
- For almost sixteen months in 2016-17, he served as the head of one of India’s leading magazines that published scholarly articles as well as reports and commentaries on current topics, and a sister research foundation. Following his article on how the Adani Group was benefited by government policies, a defamation notice was sent to the Sameeksha Trust and the authors of the article. Soon after that, Paranjoy resigned as editor. The article brought to light how the Indian government tweaked the rules which favoured a certain company within the Adani Group to the tune of Rs 500 crore. The magazine had tried to reach out to the government, but no explanation was given for this policy decision. Gautam Adani, head of the Adani Group, is said to be close to Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.
Over and above, Paranjoy has been a regular contributor to publications, news and feature agencies and websites including Outlook, Inter-Press Service, Rediff.com, BBC Online, The New Indian Express, Daily News & Analysis (DNA), Gulf News, India Abroad, Hindustan Times, BusinessWorld, Indo-Asian News Service, Business Today, The Times of India, The Economic Times, The Hindu Business Line, The Tribune, Tehelka, Hard News, Current, Caravan, Biblio, Anandabazar Patrika, Nai Dunia, Himal, The South Asian Journal, Global Business Review, the Indian International Centre Quarterly, Vidura and the Press Information Bureau (Government of India). He has also contributed to Bengali publications and portals, including the Anandabazar Patrika daily, Doinik Pratidin, Aaro Anando, Inscript.me and Hindi newspapers such as the Dainik Jagaran, Prabhat Khabar and Amar Ujala.
Paranjoy was one of the petitioners in the public interest litigation in the 2G spectrum case. He has written extensively on the case, with the first article on the subject appearing in The Economic Times in November 2007. Soon after its publication, a legal notice was served on him by Reliance Communications, but he was not taken to court. Similarly, he was served notices by the promoters of the Sahara Group and the Times of India Group for articles written by him, but these too were not followed up by instituting lawsuits in courts.
Among various documentary films on which he features as an analyst or commentator are ones on Subroto Roy Sahara and Ketan Parikh.
His mobile phone was allegedly infected in 2018 by the Pegasus spyware made by the Israeli NSO Group. This disclosure came three years later following an investigation by two international non-governmental organisations, Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. His phone was forensically examined by Citizen Lab, University of Toronto, Canada. After this international scandal came to light in July 2021, he, among others, petitioned the Supreme Court of India. He subsequently deposed before a committee appointed by the court.