India’s premier investigative agency recently raided the homes and offices of Dr. Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy, the founders and promoters of NDTV Group. NDTV includes one of India’s oldest private English news channels, which has been critical of the current government. While the case, on paper, is about “causing an alleged loss to a bank,” many believe it was meant to punish the media company for its coverage.
In this video, The Diplomat speaks to Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, the editor of Economic and Political Weekly, a peer-reviewed academic journal, about the Central Bureau of Investigation’s raid on NDTV’s founders as well as the general state of media independence and freedom under the government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Thakurta, who has been a journalist for 40 years and specializes in political economy, is also a political commentator, author, and documentary filmmaker.