Television

  • He anchored nearly 1,400 half-hour episodes of “India Talks”, a current affairs programme that was broadcast five days a week on the (then) CNBC India (later CNBC-TV18) television channel between November 1995 and June 2001. The programme, produced by Television Eighteen India Limited, would feature panel discussions and interviews on politics, economics, business and other topics of general interest.
  • The first episode of “India Talks” was telecast on 27 November 1995 on the ABN (Asia Business News) television channel. From February 1998, ABN was merged with CNBC Asia. The 1,000th episode of the programme was telecast on 27 October 1999. Most of the episodes of the “India Talks” programme, in particular, the panel discussions, were recorded at the Television Eighteen studio at New Delhi. Discussions and two-camera interviews on location were also recorded at Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad. The programme featured many of India’s best known politicians, bureaucrats, businesspersons, academics and professionals, including serving and former Union Ministers, Parliamentarians cutting across party lines, industrialists and representatives of chambers of commerce and industry associations, government officials including a number of Secretaries to the Government of India, professionals, consultants, bankers (including Governors of the Reserve Bank of India), legal experts and former judges (including former Chief Justices of India), diplomats, social activists, teachers, students, authors, architects, journalists, film-makers, actors and musicians appeared on the programme.
  • The “India Talks” programme featured several episodes on the 11th, 12th and 13th general elections in India, highlighted various Union budgets featuring successive Finance Ministers and leading officials. On more than 30 occasions, newspapers reported (sometimes on the front page) what individuals had stated on the programme.
  • From March 2007 to 2013, he anchored two weekly programmes on news and current affairs for Lok Sabha Television – a television channel owned and operated by the Parliament of India. One programme was interview-based and titled “1-on-One” while the second, called “Headstart” fist and then “Talktime”, featured a panel discussion. Many prominent politicians, technocrats, academics, journalists, bureaucrats, officials of United Nations organisations, film directors, activists and other experts appeared on the two programmes. Comments by those who appeared on the programmes were quoted by news agencies, newspapers and websites on many occasions..
  • He frequently moderated and participated in current affairs programmes for All India Radio from 1988 onwards and featured on BBC (English, Bangla, and Hindi), Deutsche Welle (German) among other radio stations. He made regular appearances as a commentator or analyst on economic, business, politics and media related issues on television channels such as NDTV 24x7, CNN-IBN, BBC World, CNN, Doordarshan News, NewsX, NDTV India, NDTV Profit, Zee News, Zee Business, Headlines Today, CNBC Awaaz, CNEB, India News, among other television channels. 
  • He anchored a daily discussion and interview-based programme on politics, economics and current affairs for two months for Tara Newz, a now-defunct Bengali television channel, in the run-up to the 2011 West Bengal assembly elections. He also appeared as a commentator/analyst for its defunct sister television channel TV South Asia.
  • During August-September 2003, he produced a curtain-raiser and interviewed five prominent individuals for Worldview India, a half-hour television programme broadcast five days a week on Doordarshan National, India’s public broadcaster, on the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization at Cancun, Mexico. 
  • He was one of the anchors on a series of episodes broadcast on Doordarshan (Main), relating to the elections to the four state assemblies of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttaranchal (now Uttarakhand) and Manipur held in February 2002. He was one of the anchors on another series of programmes broadcast in the same month on the presentation of the Railway Budget and the Union Budget for 2002-03. He also anchored programmes for Doordarshan (Main)/Doordarshan News on the Union Budgets for 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 – the last on February 28, 2007.
  • He continues to feature on television and YouTube channels as a commentator and analyst.