Karan Thapar

Karan Thapar
Born (1955-11-05) 5 November 1955
Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir, India
Education The Doon School
Pembroke College, Cambridge
St Antony's College, Oxford
Occupation News Anchor of CNN-IBN & CNBC-TV18, Headlines Today (since April 2014)
Years active 1985 – present
Notable credit(s) Devil's Advocate
India Tonight
The Last Word
Face to Face (BBC)
Hardtalk India (BBC)
To the Point

Karan Thapar is an Indian journalist and a television commentator and interviewer. He was associated with CNN-IBN and hosted The Devil's Advocate and The Last Word. He is currently associated with Headlines Today and hosts the shows To the Point and Nothing But The Truth.

Early life and Education

Karan Thapar is the youngest child of former Chief of the Army Staff General Pran Nath Thapar and Bimla Thapar. Historian Romila Thapar is his cousin.[1]

He is an alumnus of The Doon School and the Stowe School. While at Doon, Thapar was the Editor-in-chief of The Doon School Weekly.[2] He graduated with a degree in Economics and Political Philosophy from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1977. In the same year, he was also President of the Cambridge Union. He subsequently obtained a doctorate in International Relations from St Antony's College, Oxford.

Career

Karan Thapar chairing a debate in The Doon School, his alma mater, during its Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

He began his career in journalism with The Times in Lagos, Nigeria and later worked as their Lead Writer on the Indian subcontinent till 1981. In 1982 he joined London Weekend Television where he worked for the next 11 years. He then moved to India where he worked with The Hindustan Times Television Group, Home TV and United Television before setting up his own production house in August 2001, Infotainment Television, which makes programmes for amongst others BBC, Doordarshan and Channel News Asia.[3]

Currently the President of Infotainment Television, Thapar is noted for his aggressive interviews with leading politicians and celebrities. His interviews with the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, George Fernandes, J. Jayalalithaa, Manmohan Singh, Kapil Dev, General Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, Arun Jaitley, Ram Jethmalani, former U.S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and The Dalai Lama are particularly well remembered.

A few of his shows which have been much watched are Eyewitness, Tonight at 10, In Focus with Karan, Line of Fire and War of Words. The shows with which he has been making headlines lately are, Devil's Advocate and The Last Word on CNN-IBN and India Tonight on CNBC TV 18.[3]

In April 2014, Thapar quit CNN-IBN to join Headlines Today. He hosts the new show of the Channel titled To the Point whose pilot episode ran on April 1, 2014.[4]

Awards and accolades

Books

References

  1. ↑ "When the Devil’s Advocate has the Last Word". Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  2. ↑ History of the Weekly, The Doon School publications (2009) p.41
  3. 1 2 3 "Karan Thapar - Infotainment Television". Infotainment Television. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
  4. ↑ "Karan Thapar to host ‘To the Point’ on Headlines Today". Indian Television. 2 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
  5. ↑ "Karan Thapar wins journalism award". The Hindu. 7 October 2013. Retrieved 25 April 2014.

External links

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