Karan Thapar

Karan Thapar is the only Indian television professional who has worked for ten years in television outside India.  Trained as a correspondent, producer, editor and presenter with London Weekend Television in the United Kingdom, where he worked for programmes as varied as Weekend World, The World This Week, The Business Programme, The Walden Interview and Eastern Eye, he has both the most varied and the most in-depth knowledge and experience of television current affairs programme making available in India today. In 1991, on his return to India, Karan Thapar helped establish H.T. Vision Limited, the first television venture established by the K.K. Birla group, which he headed as Executive Producer.  HTV’s flagship programme, Eyewitness, initially launched as a video magazine but which later transferred to Doordarshan as a weekly programme, quickly became a window on current affairs. Amongst its remarkable successes were path-breaking interviews with former president R. Venkatraman, former prime ministers of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto and Moin Quereshi, and the first interview as prime minister from P.V. Narasimha Rao, as well as unique war-front reportage from Afghanistan after the takeover of the country by the Mujahideen.