Tarun J Tejpal (born 15 March 1963) is an Indian journalist, publisher and a novelist. He is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Tehelka magazine, which he founded in March 2000.[1] He is married to Geetan Batra, a trustee of Salaam Baalak Trust. They have two daughters, Tiya & Cara. Tarun and his wife live in New Delhi with their 6 dogs and 3 cats.
In 2001 BusinessWeek named him as amongst the 50 leaders at the forefront of change in Asia.,[2] later in 2009, the magazine named him amongst, "India's 50 Most Powerful People 2009".[3] His debut novel The Alchemy of Desire (2006), won Le Prix Mille Pages, it was followed by Story of my Assassins (2010).[4]
Tejpal has worked with many news publications such as, editor at India Today, Indian Express Group and the managing editor Outlook.
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Tarun Tejpal was born in an Army household as his father was with the Indian Army, hence he grew up many parts of India. He graduated in economics from Punjab University in Chandigarh in Punjab.[5][6]
He started his career in 1980s, with the India Today magazine and later helped found the rival publication, Outlook, where he worked for several years. Meanwhile he also founded a publishing company, India Ink, which published Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize winning novel The God of Small Things in 1998.[5]
He left Outlook magazine in March 2000, to start tehelka.com, an online independent news and views magazine which soon came to be known for its sting investigations including the cricket and defense scams. The website was relaunched as a national weekly newspaper, Tehelka in January 2004, subsequently as weekly magazine. Since then the magazine has started publishing a Hindi version as well. A vibrant section extensively covers music, art and literature; nationally and internationally.
Tehelka has done a string of hard hitting stories covering investigations of the Jessica Lal murder case, the Godhra Riots, the Naxal movement in India etc.
Tehelka blew the cover off the unholy nexus of politicians, senior defence personnel and ubiquitous fixers who infest every defence deal in India. Floating a fictitious company; West End International, based in London, hawking non-existent thermal imaging binoculars, the Tehelka Investigative Team encountered and cracked the closely guarded bastion of manufacturers, agents and their military and political patrons running up to the highest offices in the land.
The story of went about demolishing the last illusion of the Indian democratic state. It is a tale replete with appalling avarice, backstabbing, bribery and inducement. Shockingly, no one the investigation touched emerged untainted.
Tejpal wrote the following article after breaking the story
See: Tehelka
The Tehelka expose has been widely talked about in the Indian media. Madhu Trehan, one of the most well-known names in Indian journalism, has penned a book on the expose and its aftermath. The book, Tehelka as Metaphor, is an exhaustive account of how Tarun Tejpal and the entire team of Tehelka were destroyed by the Indian bureaucracy.