Key people in Indian new media

BY jyothi| IN Digital Media | 01/04/2003

Jyothi Kiran

The list I am providing is by no means comprehensive. Nonetheless it is a beginning and I hope it is useful for students of new media, journalists and anybody interested in networking in the brave new world of the Internet. I have grouped the names under journalists, entrepreneurs, professors, authors, market researchers and proactive netizens. I have listed the names in alphabetical order of first names and have not followed any other hierarchy.

Do excuse me if you find some names overlap categories because there are those who defy categories and those who fall into more than one category. My aim here is to provide a general list of names of those who are active on the Internet. I have also provided links to their companies or email ids wherever possible to allow for networking, which I believe is the grand purpose of this article. Please feel free to send names that you think I should have added. I hope to publish an updated list soon.

Journalists

Anand Parthasarathy is a senior IT correspondent of The Hindu. Anand completed his B.E. from the University of Pune and did his Masters from Birmingham University, UK in 1975. He has worked on parallel computing systems development and served as a Systems Manager for Surface-Air Missile on the Indian Missile Program in Hyderabad. He has written a number of articles on E-commerce, Convergence technologies and on the Internet. He is currently based in Bangalore.

Frederick Noronha is a full time Goa-based journalist for the past 13 years. He writes for the India Abroad News Service (IANS) and for several publications in Goa and the rest of India. He is a founder member of ‘Bytes for all’, a voluntary online initiative in South Asia. The bytes for all website is a rich source of information interchange for many innovative ICT projects in the region. Frederick is a passionate campaigner for universal access to ICT.

Kajal Basu is a senior cyber journalist. He has over 20 years of journalistic experience. Jobs he has held include those at The Sunday Observer, India Today, The Economic Times, The National Herald, Down To Earth, Sunday Mail, The Pioneer, Life Positiv. His interests range from science fiction to environment to the arts to automobiles to cyberspace. According to the Tehelka website, he is rumored to have one foot in the cyber grave and the other on a banana peel.

Kanti Kumar, Editor of Digital Opportunity Channel at OneWorld South Asia, New Delhi, is a journalist of 15 years` standing with experience in print, television and the Internet. He has worked for both mainstream and development media in India, including The Times of India and Down To Earth. Kanti Kumar has written on development issues extensively in the media. His favorite topic is the role of media and communication technologies in sustainable development.

Leslie D`Monte, is the editor of Industry20.com He is the Editor Head (Content) in the Jasubhai digital group. He has a postgraduate diploma in Journalism, and a degree in Economics and Philosophy. He worked as a sub editor and a reporter with Express Investment Week, and as an Editorial Coordinator with the Indian Express

Pradeep Shinde is the editor of www.gunaah.com and the chief of the Mumbai bureau. Gunaah.com is a website on crime and punishment. He is a senior journalist who has worked with many leading newspapers including Indian Express, The Daily, Free Press Journal and Mid-Day. He says his site is `a platform for anyone combating crime`. The site has useful information on missing persons and has a counseling section for victims of domestic violence and drug abuse.

Roy Mathew is a Special Correspondent of The Hindu, is based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He maintains a website called Web resources site for journalists. In addition to writing for the Hindu, Roy also loves to take pictures. His pictures have been published by Frontline and other publications. He has also authored a book titled A Handbook for Journalists on Computers and WordStar, published by the Press Club of Thiruvananthapuram.  

Subhash Rai is a passionate online advocate. He is the editor of Indian online Journalism, the IOJ website. Subhash Rai started his online journalism career with ETOnline. After ET, Subhash moved to indya.com as member of the news channel. He then moved to journalism education with the fond hope that he could inspire aspiring journalists to believe in online journalism. Subhash is currently with Frontline in Chennai and when he is offline you will find him trying to get the next issue of IOJ online.

Tarun J Tejpal is the Editor-in-Chief of Tehelka.com. Tarun was the managing editor of Outlook, India`s premier weekly newsmagazine until March 2000 when he became the CEO of Tehelka.com. Tarun’s website invited a lot of trouble from the government with his brand of investigative journalism. But Tarun is not the kind of a person who gives up easily. He plans to make a comeback fully by August 2003, this time based entirely on subscriptions. Tarun’s career spans over 18 years. He has reported for The Indian Express and The Telegraph, and has been an editor with the India Today and The Indian Express groups.

Dr.Uday Lal Pai is a Kerala based business journalist and market analyst who has written for a number of national and international publications, in both print and online. His area of specialization is Information Technology, Telecom, Internet, Wireless, Electronics and Media. Udai  claims that for him Journalism is merely a livelihood, where as his passion is in creative writing. He has authored a number of short stories and is just waiting for the mega opus to emerge one of these days.

Entrepreneurs

Abraham Mathew is the President of Cyber India Online. CIOL is India`s First IT portal, established in 1996. CIOL is headquartered in Bangalore, it belongs to the Cyber Media group of companies - a company whose business includes publishing; multimedia; production of TV programs; organizing seminars and exhibitions; market research and consultancy, for nearly two decades now.

Balbir and Amrita Singh of Koramangala.com. The mom and pop e-commerce website that made more news abroad than in India, is still going strong. It just completed its third anniversary. It is a community site that gives you useful and interesting information on businesses and services in Koramangala, one of the happening places in Bangalore.

Kris Lakshmikanth is the founder, CEO and managing director of Prizedjobs.com. Bangalore, India. Launched in March 2000, Prizedjobs.com is one of India`s biggest Jobs and Career Portal. Lakshmikanth is credited with redefining headhunting in Chennai with his direct approach. Lakshmikanth is a born optimist who believes that depression brings the best in man. Currently, he is based in Bangalore.

Mahesh was one of the early riders on the Internet highway. He began his career with his one-man India directory Mahesh.com that soon transformed itself as Indiainfo.com. Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer Mahesh is not just a dotcom survivor but also a pragmatist who believes in persevering. The portal, which has witnessed an investment of $15 million since its inception in April 1999, has restructured its operations by focusing on areas that generate revenues.

Maulik Jasubhai Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Jasubhai Group
Maulik was instrumental in driving the strategic shift from engineering to technology media. He spearheaded the company`s successful foray into the field of IT. He has always focused on strengthening Jasubhai`s leadership role in high-tech media while building its brand franchises. Prior to this appointment, Maulik Jasubhai worked briefly for Fisher Rosemount USA.

Pradeep Kar is the founder and chairman of Planetasia, a member of the Microland Group. The Group consists of Planetasia, one of India`s leading Middleware/Internet technology focused solutions and Services Company. He is widely acclaimed as India`s leading technology entrepreneur. He has been awarded `India Young Business Achiever` in 1996 and was nominated in 1999 to participate in the World Economic Forum`s one hundred `Global Leaders for Tomorrow`.

Ramjee Chandran is the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, Explocity.com, which received the first round of funding from ICF Ventures, and the second round from Rupert Murdoch`s News Corp. Explocity.com is an aggregation of city-centric portals in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Goa, New York and Dubai.

Sabir Bhatia Truly, Indian online scene couldn’t have become this hot without our hotmail entrepreneur Sabir Bhatia. E-mail interviews are now commonplace in journalism, both in print and in new Media. But we owe it to Bhatia for making e-mail popular in India. Newer mind that his next venture Arzoo did not survive, his contribution to the Internet revolution has earned him a place among the top 100 innovators by the MIT Technology Review (TR-100) for the next millennium.

V S Sudhakar, the Managing Director of Fabmall.com has had the unique distinction of starting and building India`s first Internet services company- Planetasia.com. As CEO of Planetasia, Sudhakar put the team together, developed the strategy, and pioneered the business successfully in a fledgling industry. Today he spearheads Fabmall (the new avatar of fabmart.com) team which projects itself as the  ‘the finest virtual retail store in the country.

Sunil Abraham founded MAHITI in 1998 along with Sreekanth and Allan to provide appropriate and affordable IT services to the voluntary sector. He started by providing free E-mail service and web sites for around 20 organizations. Mahiti has designed more than 50 web projects for non-profit organizations. In 1991, he was elected as Ashoka Fellow for exploring the democratic potential of the Internet. At present Sunil provides project design consultancy for rural ICT and e-governance projects.

Rajesh Jain Managing Director of Netcore Solutions Pvt Ltd, launched Indiaworld.com in 1995. From its pioneering start, the website has grown to be one of the largest collections of India-centric websites, comprising Samachar, Khel, Khoj and Bawarchi. In November 1999, satyam Infoway acquired Indiaworld for US$115 million. Rajesh Jain contributes to a daily technology column at tech.samachar.

Professors, authors and technologists

Anand Sudarshan is Co-CEO of Planetasia (www.planetasia.com). He is also a founder member of the Microland Group, of which Planetasia is a part. Anand is a familiar face at domestic and international industry events, as also a visiting faculty to premier institutes across the country. He has to his credit several articles in various publications in his primary area of interest: `charting the effectiveness between information and management technologies.`

Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, this IIT Professor at Madras is also known as Professor wireless. His mission is to bring telephone and Internet to every village in India through his company TENET. Dr.Jhunjhunwala leads the Telecommunications and Computer Networks group (TeNeT) at IIT Madras. This group is closely working with industry in the development number of Telecommunications and Computer Network Systems.  More Details

Atul Chitnis of Exocore Consulting, operates as its Chief Technology Officer. He specializes in Corporate computing strategies and the identification of appropriate technologies. Based in Bangalore, Atul enjoys writing articles that "humanize technology. His articles have appeared in various publications such as PC Quest and DataQuest. Some of his most popular articles are related to data communication and the Internet, as well as Linux -- an Operating System he has been involved with since 1993.

Gopi Garge, popular in the Internet circles as the local Internet Guru, esp., in the South East Asian Internet community due to his association with the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). Garge is a Senior Consultant at Exocore Consulting (P) Limited and a Network Services Consultant to the ERNET, IISc. He is a Technical reviewer for the IETE and has reviewed papers for the ACM Transactions. He writes technical articles for PC-Quest and consults for some leading financial institutions in India. 

Pavan Duggal is a practicing Advocate, Supreme Court of India and a Cyber law Consultant. He is the President of Cyberlaws.Net, Pavan is the Founder President of Cyberlaw India and Cyberlaw Asia. He has also founded The Cyberlaw Association. He is also the Founder of Cyberarbitration, an online system of alternative dispute resolution. Pavan has authored three books entitled "Cyber law in India",  " Cyber law The Indian Perspective " and " Indian Convergence Law. "  Pavan writes a cyber law column every Sunday " Brief Cases "in The Economic Times.

Madanmohan Rao  is an Internet consultant and writer based in Bangalore, India. He is the co-author of the handbook "The Internet Economy of India, 2001." More recently, he has authored "The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook." Madan is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit, and has given talks and lectures on Internet-related issues in about 40 countries. His articles have appeared in many Indian and International publications; some of his writing has also been translated into Spanish and German. He is also the editor at large for the website on Internet economy of India Inomy.com

Venkatesh Hariharan, associate professor at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, is a net activist who writes a regular column for Times Computing magazine. One of his areas of concern in the Indian IT industry is its lack of standardization. Check out ten Hindi newspapers, he says and you will have to download 10 different versions of the Hindi fonts software. And it is one of the reasons why he believes that although Hindi is one of the top ten widely spoken languages in the world, its presence on the web is negligible. Currently he is involved with Media Lab Asia. He is based in Bangalore and can be reached at venky@iiitb.ac.in. 

 Advertising and Market Research

Ajit Balakrishnan chairman and CEO of Rediff.com India, has straddled both the old and the new economy. In 1995 when the IT industry was still a fledgling, 47 years old Ajit Balakrishnan launched Rediff.com. Today the web site boasts of 22 million users. The website has been for the third consecutive time as the Judged as The Best Indian Portal Site by PC Quest, India’s leading IT magazine at the PC Quest Users Choice Awards 2002.

Anjali Mathur & Kiron Kasbekar of www.domain-b.com, India`s first online business journal. Kiron Kasbekar has been a former editor of The Economic Times, Bombay, the business editor of The Times of India and managing editor of Business India. Anjali Mathur is the ex-resident editor of The Sunday Observer and was the executive editor of Gentleman magazine. Their website is a useful interface between companies and the media and investors.

Anurag Batra of www.exchange4media.com understands both technology and marketing. He also functions as the CTO of the company. Exchange4media
is a web resource for analysis and research on media and advertising developments. It offers exclusive features like `Dialogue`- Weekly interview with honchos, `Viewership Update`- on satellite channel and `Archives` of news circulated thru their newsletter ‘Inside Media’ and ‘Inside Media Weekend.’

Ranjan Banerjee
An engineer from IIT Bombay and MBA from IIM Calcutta, Ranjan has been a consultant to over 35 leading corporations in India. He heads NetSense(TM) an Internet research and consulting initiative. He has led one of the first ever researches into dotcom viability in India, commissioned by Business World. He is a marketing consultant to India Properties, Mithi.com and a couple of Internet start-ups. He writes a regular column on retailing and e-commerce for A&M magazine.

 
Sidharth Rao In early 1999, he Co founded Webchutney Studio, a full service interactive agency. Sidharth`s new media interests include Internet marketing for consumer brands, qualitative research and analysis amongst others. He is also the founder of Juxtaposition, a strategic business Unit of Webchutney and the first new media analysis company in the country, which publishes thought, opinions, and research in the digital domain. Sidharth started his career with Mudra Advertising and then moved on to Trikaya Grey as a copywriter.

Sreekant Khandekar and Sandeep Vij of Agencyfaqs. Sreekant is the founding editor of A&M magazine before he quit to develop agencyfaqs! with Sandeep. Sandeep has made his career in advertising and was the chief operating officer (North) for Mudra Communications. agencyfaqs! was set up in typical entrepreneurial fashion, from a garage in New Delhi, with just three full timers. It is now one of India`s most prominent sites. In a recent survey, the magazine Businessworld ranked agencyfaqs! among 21 Indian dotcoms closest to success.

Freelance writers, Net activists, media practitioners and others

Anita Bora writes for rediff.com and maintains a handy list of Indian bloggers. One of the early Indian bloggers, Anita also has her own weblog titled Just A Little Something. As she says in her blog, she writes on anything that catches her fancy: dewdrops, gizmos, cars, cricket, football, cats, water, hills, movies, books, quilts, potted plants, leaves and art.

Arnab Nandi, Jayant Gandhi and Kapil Mohan are the brave new kids of the blog world. They shot into limelight when they developed a blogging software while studying at Delhi University`s Keshav Maha Vidyalaya. Kapil Mohan is the database geek, Jayant is the troubleshooter and it was Arnab who introduced blogging to his two friends. Arnab has just turned twenty; he has a theory on why ‘Google bought Blogger to bolster its Google News thingy’. Read more in his weblog.

Deepa Kandeswamy is an engineer by education and an industrialist who freelances from Trichy. She writes a weekly column for the US website backwash.com. She writes on political, social and technical issues, which have been published in The Hindu, Outlook, and Women in Business, PC World, Glamour, etc. She is featured in the "The Writing Group Book" forthcoming from Chicago Review Press to be released in Fall 2003. She is currently writing a book on Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Jyotsna Kamat of Kamat.com. A teacher and scholar who has authored books and published many articles on Indian history and culture, maintains a little India website that boasts of ‘probably one of the most largest personal websites’. She writes a blog called ammas column. Kamat.com is a popular website that was picked up by the Arts and Letters daily, and a Editor`s Pick Listing at Bharat-Ek-Khoj (previously known as Mahesh.Com) has some very interesting articles.

Kiruba Shankar, another blogging enthusiast who has taken blogging to the next level by introducing the Indian bloggers to voice blogging. It was also Kiruba who organized the first bloggers meet in Chennai. Kiruba writes about technology and user interface. He likes to share his passion for user interface technology with his friends and has devoted a website for it at www.NetUsability.org

Mohan Ramamoorthy is a Chennai based journalist who maintains a website called Indianmediareview.com According to Ramamoorthy, IMR is a modest attempt at providing a forum to discuss and debate media issues. IMR looks at the major issues in the news, questions unethical practices, and opposes restrictions on the range of sources and perspectives. IMR publishes articles, which examine biased reporting, censored news, media mergers, and press/state cronyism, the power of corporate owners and advertisers, and right wing and left wing influences in the media.

Nirmaldasan is the editor of the Journalism Online Newsletter. He is also the author of a collection of early poems titled An Eaglet In The Skies, which attracted favorable reviews in The Hindu and The Madras Times. Some of his poems have found a place at www.poetsindia.com.

Sanjay Bhangar operates the Mumbai center of the popular Seattle based Independent media organization.  IMC Mumbai works as a decentralized network of media producers and analysts that includes students, professionals, scholars and sympathizers. You can visit the web-site of the Bombay IMC. On this site, you can publish your news, opinions, photos, videos, and creative expressions. The Bombay IMC, and the network of "IndyMedia" supporters is not headed by any person, organization, or corporation, but works as a loose and open collective, sharing information and turning ideas into action.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta of SARAI, is a media practitioner, filmmaker and writer with the Raqs Media Collective, and one of the initiators of SARAI. His recent work involves textual explorations of aesthetics, surveillance and cyber culture. He is currently working on a series of new media and digital culture projects at the SARAI Media Lab. He can be reached at shuddha@sarai.net

Contact: jyothiK@iijnm.org