MUMBAI: It has been ten years since India TV has been present in the Hindi news genre and now it has decided to ramp itself up, five years after the previous touch up. The channel has got a brand new logo that will be aired from Monday, 16 December.

It was only a few weeks ago that India TV brought on board veteran journalist Q W Naqvi as its editorial director. Now, the news channel is making its editorial team even stronger ahead of the 2014 General Elections.

The channel has brought Amitabh, who has been with Aaj Tak since last 18 years, on board as the senior executive editor. Assisting Amitabh would be Pranay Yadav, who has been appointed as the executive editor and Shivendra Kumar as the deputy executive editor. Yadav was with TV9 prior to joining this, while Kumar was with ABP News.

The news gathering team is to be headed by the new executive editor Rahul Choudhry from Aaj Tak with Sukesh Ranjan as political editor, Shamsher Singh as current affairs editor, Prateek Trivedi as associate editor and Sundeep Sonwalker as deputy editor.

A new flagship show involving chairman and editor in chief Rajat Sharma called ‘Aaj Ki Baat-Rajat Sharma ke Saath’ is set to be aired during the prime time. “India TV newsroom is fully charged to capture the excitement of upcoming General elections. Extensive plans have been made to report, analyse and present the battle for the next Lok Sabha elections to our viewers,” said Sharma.

Commenting on the new appointments India TV MD & CEO Ritu Dhawan said, “When the channel announced the appointment of QW Naqvi as the editorial director in October, it was always on cards that the content team will be further strengthened to gear up for the biggest event in the news genre, to begin with the General Elections slated for 2014.”

“Our viewers can be assured of most accurate and responsible news reporting, which will further cement our leadership position in Hindi News genre,” said Naqvi.

“All such efforts are a testimony to our commitment to broadcast a perfect mix of news, views & analysis to our ever-evolving audiences and we are sure that we will be able to create and maintain a perfect content mix,” added Dhawan.