Nikhil Chakravarty

Nikhil Chakravartty(1913-1998) was an Indian journalist. Chakravartty was born November 3, 1913, in India's northeastern state of Assam. He died June 27, 1998.^[1] He was the founder-editor of the well-respected current affairs weekly Mainstream.^[2] He graduated from Calcutta University and studied at Oxford University's Merton College in England.Chakravarty taught history at Calcutta University in the 1930s before taking to journalism.Before plunging into active journalism, Nikhil was special correspondent of the Communist Party’s People’s War and People’s Age. In 1959, he set up the India Press Agency and immediately broke the story on the activities of the then Prime Minister’s personal assistant, M O Mathai. The story rocked Parliament and Mathai had to resign. He then founded Mainstream with which he was associated, first as editor then as adviser till his death. Between 1975 and 1977 he played a key role in press freedom and with other senior journalists fought against the Anti-Defamation Bill and forced its withdrawal. He later joined the Communist Party of India(CPI) and remained a member until 1978.He closed the Mainstream weekly for a while when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed emergency rule in India 1975-77, jailing political opponents and imposing censorship on newspapers and magazines.

Nikhil Chakravartty was a member of the Press Commission, Chairman NAMEDIA conference and Chairman, NAMEDIA Foundation. He was a member of the National Integration Council as well as the Indo US Sub Commission on Education, Culture and Media.When the Prasar Bharati board was constituted in 1977 Nikhil was appointed as its first Chairman.

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External links

• A Towering journalist
• Mainstreamweekly.net
• www.frontline.in
• www.mainstreamweekly.net