| Niret Alva | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Gurgaon |
| Occupation | co-founder and chairman Miditech |
| Years active | 1988 - present |
| Website | |
| http://www.miditech.tv/default.aspx | |
Niret Alva is an Indian television producer and anchor. He co-founded Miditech, a Rs 50-crore television software company, along with his brother Nikhil Alva in 1992, which is currently one of Asia's leading independent production companies.[1][2] It is most known for producing reality-singing competition, Indian Idol (Season 1 to 4).
Starting in the documentaries genre, Miditech first made a series on the environment, Living on the Edge for Doordarshan, and went on to make documentaries for the BBC, Discovery and National Geographic, before entering the entertainment genre around 2004,[1] with Indian Idol (2004–2009), Galli Galli Sim Sim (Sesame Street) (2006),[3] Wheels (1998) (BBC World).[4][5] He is also a world-class television presenter having anchored travel( Great Escape), automobile (Wheels) and environment (Living on the Edge and Earth Report) shows over the course of his career. He has won an Asian Television Award for Best anchor for “Wheels” for BBC World and has been a runner up twice for the same show. In 2007, he was awarded the Indian National Award for Excellence in Science based Communication in the Visual Medium.
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Niret was born in Bangalore - the first child of lawyers Niranjan and Margaret Alva. Niret has two brothers, Nikhil and Nivedith, and a sister, Manira, with whom he manages Miditech.[6][7] His name is actually a portmanteau word, wherein the first two letters are from his father Niranjan, and the last three from his mother, Margaret Alva.[4] The family moved to Delhi in 1974 when his mother was elected to the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of India's parliament). She went on to serve as minister of state in Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao's governments. A prominent parliamentarian, she served four consecutive terms in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha. She is currently Governor of the north Indian state of Uttarakhand.
Niret is a graduate in History from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, has a post graduate diploma in journalism, from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, is a recipient of a certificate from the Radio Netherlands Training Centre in Hilversum (Holland) for a News and Current Affairs course in Television and earned a law degree (LLB) from Mumbai University.
Niret joined the Press Trust of India, Television, as a Trainee Reporter/Scriptwriter , in January 1988. Beginning his career when television was still government controlled in the late 1980s he moved on to become a Correspondent with Eyewitness, a monthly independent video newsmagazine, owned by Hindustan Times Television in 1990. He learned the ropes reporting from all the troubled spots in country and covering subjects as diverse as Indian attitudes to sex, caste violence, the dangers of the civilian use of the army and the bungled capture of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassin. From documentaries to news stories, youth based programmes and business shows to a soft feature on Aamir Khan.
In 1992, he co-founded Miditech, a television software production company, along with his brother Nikhil . The two brothers produce series and programming that is judged popular and innovative. Miditech's program, Living on the Edge, India's first comprehensive Environment series, won a Panda award at Wildscreen in Bristol in 1996 - an award that is popularly hailed as the Green Oscar.
Niret has scripted, directed and been associated with several international, award winning documentaries, including The Great Descent - a river rafting journey down the Brahmaputra after the massive flood of 2000, and Operation Hot Pursuit - an undercover documentary on the illegal ivory trade between India and Japan.
Niret is married to Indian author and ad-woman turned writer, Anuja Chauhan, author of The Zoya Factor (2008) and an advertising person. They first met in 1989, during the production of a play in Delhi, they both were involved in, eventually they got married in 1994.[8] Today they have three children, Niharika Margaret, Nayantara Violet, and Daivik John.
| Title | Year | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Wheels (TV series) | 1998 | Host/Executive Producer |
| Indian Idol (Reality-singing competition) | (2004–2009) | Executive Producer |
| Galli Galli Sim Sim | 2006 | Executive Producer |
| Parrivaar (TV series) | ( 2007–2008) | Executive Producer |
| cell | cell |