News Broadcasting
Rituparna Chatterjee joins The Independent as deputy editor – Asia
NEW DELHI: Gender rights activist and the curator of @IndiaMeToo page on Twitter, who brought to light several shocking instances of sexual harassment in the Indian media industry, Rituparna Chatterjee has joined UK-based The Independent as deputy editor – Asia.
Chatterjee announced the news on Twitter earlier today.
A bit of personal work news. Have joined the @Independent as Deputy Asia Editor.
— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) December 16, 2020
Chatterjee has over 17 years of experience in the industry, during which time she has been associated with a number of prime news outlets in the country. She started her career as a staff reporter for The Statesman and then went on to work with Press Trust of India (PTI), News18 India and HuffPost India.
She has also written for Reporters Without Borders, and Ungender Inc. Her columns have been featured in Indian and international publications and she is a former thought leader for Citizens For Public Leadership. Her last stint was with Ungender Legal Advisory as director of communications.
Her areas of expertise include creating and curating editorial content, gender advocacy, creating communities of interest, running social media campaigns, leadership and mentoring.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
