Authoritarianism, Populism, and Nationalism: Challenges of Journalism in Contemporary India

As India faces a rise in authoritarianism and populism, acclaimed journalists Sankarshan Thakur and Sushant Singh will discuss challenges facing journalists and related organizations in the country. Topics of focus will include Thakur’s experiences navigating reporting in Jammu and Kashmir, his role as editor of a national newspaper in a security state, and the impacts of new technologies, laws, and shifts in business environment for traditional media outlets.

PANELISTS

Sankarshan Thakur is one of India’s most experienced and respected journalists. In a career spanning four decades, he has been on the ringside of major national and international events and reported from far corners of India and the world. Essentially a political journalist based out of New Delhi, Thakur has specialised in reporting Kashmir and Bihar, two of India’s more volatile states. He is also a columnist and writer with a formidable body of work to his name. Between 2019 and 2023, Thakur headed the national correspondents’ network for The Telegraph, a leading English daily published from Calcutta. Thakur is currently Editor of The Telegraph and divides work between New Delhi and Calcutta.

Sushant Singh is Lecturer in South Asian Studies at Yale University and Consulting Editor at The Caravan magazine in New Delhi. He co-founded The India Cable, a daily newsletter from India and is a columnist for The Telegraph (Kolkata) and The Morning Context. His work has recently appeared in many global publications, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Walrus, Kiev Independent, and Tagesspiegel. He was earlier the Deputy Editor of The Indian Express newspaper in India where he covered strategic affairs and national security. In 2018 and 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism. Sushant was a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in India from 2020 to 2024. He was a visiting lecturer at Yale in Fall 2019 and the Henry Hart Rice Fellow in Fall 2021, returning as a lecturer in 2023. A former Indian military officer with two decades of uniformed service, he has worked as an Observer with the United Nations in Cote d’Ivoire. He is the author of “Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the Indian Military” and the co-author of “Note by Note: The India Story 1947-2017.”