News Broadcasting
Fifty days of Demonetization with CNN-News18 special telethon
MUMBAI: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs. 1000 notes and appealed to the masses to support him in his drive against black money and corruption on 8 November, the announcement was met with mixed feelings as no one knew what it entailed.
As this 50 day period comes to an end, CNN-News18 will be doing a special day-long programme in the form of a telethon on 30 December 2016 from 9 am to 8 pm.
Led by senior journalist Bhupendra Chaubey, the telethon will analyze the current scenario and try to get all sides of the NaMo’s DeMo story as it currently stands.
This will include ground reports from various parts of the country along with interaction with Union Cabinet Ministers such as Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, M Venkaiah Naidu, Piyush Goyal as well as leaders of opposition parties like Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor, and Nitish Kumar to name a few. The channel will also try to speak to well-known commentators on political and economic affairs like S Gurumurthy, Surjit Bhalla, Rajiv Kumar, Anil Bokil and prominent entrepreneurs like Vijay Shekhar Sharma of PayTm and representatives of other mobile wallet companies.
The channel will also leverage its exclusive partnership with CNN to bring in a global perspective on the issue.
This special telecast aims to provide an overall perspective on the demonetization exercise and will provide a unique platform for the common man to raise their concerns and voice their opinions.
News Broadcasting
Rajesh Sundaram joins NDTV Profit as senior editor, assignment
The 32-year newsroom veteran has launched channels on three continents and covered everything from 9/11 to South African television
MUMBAI: NDTV Profit has bolstered its newsroom with a hire who has done rather more than most. Rajesh Sundaram, a journalist with over three decades of editorial, managerial and consultative experience across India and international markets, joins as senior editor, assignment, tasked with sharpening the network’s newsgathering and real-time response.
Sundaram’s career reads like a tour of Indian media’s most formative moments. He began at Businessworld in 1994, moved to Zee News as bureau chief across Mumbai and Chennai, then joined NDTV in 2002 as part of its political bureau during a particularly febrile period in Indian politics. A stint as India correspondent for Al Jazeera International followed, where he covered key geopolitical developments and got his first serious taste of the global newsroom.
What sets Sundaram apart, however, is his serial channel-launching habit. At NewsX, he helped get the operation off the ground. At Headlines Today, part of the India Today Group, he served as editor. At News Nation, he helped launch the Hindi news channel and its digital ecosystem. He then crossed continents to lead the launch of ANN7 in South Africa as editor-in-chief, overseeing both television and digital. Back in India, he launched Tamil news channels News7 Tamil and Cauvery News, and later served as principal consultant for the launch of Marathi channel Lokshahi. Most recently, he helped build and lead the Press Trust of India’s video service and content studio, before stints consulting for Business Today and The Himalayan Times.
Rahul Kanwal, chief executive and editor-in-chief of NDTV, left little doubt about what Sundaram is expected to deliver. “The assignment desk is where a newsroom’s intent becomes action,” he said. “Rajesh brings a rare combination of field experience and leadership in building news operations at scale.”
Sundaram has reported from across India and the world, covering elections, civil conflicts, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 US presidential election.
At NDTV Profit, he will lead the assignment desk, driving editorial coordination and real-time response across markets and breaking developments. For a business news network sharpening its focus on speed and multi-platform delivery, it has hired a man who has built newsrooms from scratch on three continents. The assignment desk is in good hands.
