Rajdeep Sardesai, 59, is an award winning senior journalist, author, TV news presenter. His latest book 2019: How Modi won India is a national bestseller as was his previous book 2014: The Election that changed India which has been translated into half a dozen languages. His book Democracy’s Eleven: The Great Story of Indian Cricket was shortlisted by MCC Lords as cricket book of the year in 2017-18.
Currently the consulting editor and lead news anchor of the India Today group, he has over three decades of journalistic experience in print and television. He was the founder editor of the IBN 18 network which included CNN IBN, IBN 7 and IBN Lokmat. Prior to that, he was Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for 6 years and was city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26.
During his long career in journalism, he has covered major national and international stories, specializing in national politics. He has won more than 50 awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for Journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism award in 2007 and the 2019 Prem Bhatia award for political journalism for analysis of the 2019 elections. The first Indian to win the Asian Television award for both talk show and news presentation, he has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy a record ten times. In 2020, he was conferred with the Lifetime achievement award at the annual news broadcasting awards, He has been the President of the Editors Guild of India and was also chosen as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. Sardesai writes a fortnightly column across several newspapers, including The Hindustan Times and Dainik Bhaskar. He has his own blog site and is the third most followed journalist in the world on social media site, Twitter. A graduate of St Xaviers college, he has completed his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and played first class cricket at Oxford and captained Mumbai schools.
His forthcoming new book is ‘2024: The Election That Surprised India’ and will be represented by A Suitable Agency. It brings to life the inside story of a dramatic period in Indian politics and society. Every twist and turn is revealed in an exciting narrative on the tumultuous events of our times. Unsparing and uncompromising, this is an unputdownable account of power politics, the main characters and their role in influencing the headlines of our times. After the best selling books on the 2014 and 2019 elections, the author now takes a deep dive into India’s most bruising and polarized political battle and the many stories that shaped an extraordinary election verdict.
2024: The Election That Surprised India will be published by HarperCollins in October, 2024.