Vir Sanghvi is the best-known Indian journalist of his generation. His career straddles
print, television, books and now, new media.
Vir Sanghvi was born in London in 1956 and educated at Mayo College, Ajmer and Mill
Hill School, London. He won an Open Scholarship to read Politics, Philosophy and
Economics at Brasenose College, Oxford.
In 1978, when he was 22, he was appointed editor of Bombay magazine, making him
the youngest editor in the history of Indian journalism. In 1983, he presided over
the re-launch of the monthly features magazine Imprint and in 1986, when he was
30, he became editor of Sunday, the newsmagazine published by the ABP group. Under
Sanghvi's editorship Sunday became India's largest-selling English-language newsmagazine.
Later, Sanghvi became Consulting Editor of the ABP group, the leading publishers
of newspapers and magazines in Eastern India.
In 1999, he was appointed Editor of the Hindustan Times, the largest-selling English-language
newspaper in Delhi and North India. In 2003, he stepped down as Editor but continued
as Editorial Director till 2007.
During Sanghvi's time, the Hindustan Times became a multi-edition newspaper opening
new editions in Chandigarh, Calcutta, Bhopal, Ranchi, and most successfully in Bombay
where it is now the second largest-selling newspaper.
In 2007, Sanghvi switched to an advisory role with HT Media, the company that publishes
the Hindustan Times and the financial daily Mint. He continues to be a regular columnist
for the Hindustan Times.
Sanghvi has also run a parallel TV career which began while he was still editor
of Sunday. He anchored Question Time for Doordarshan, the state-run broadcaster
and then Round Table for DD-CNN, a collaboration between Doordarshan and CNN. In
1997, he switched to the Star Network where he anchored many shows across channels,
among them A Question of Answers, Star Talk, Veer Ke Teer, and Cover Story. His
show, Achiever's Club, aired on Star World in 2011/12.
He has also anchored shows on the NDTV network, including Face The Music, and One
On One on NDTV 24x7 and Custom Made for Vir Sanghvi on NDTV Good Times. His most
recent appearance on NDTV was as a judge on the India-Pakistan food competition
Foodistan in 2012.
Among Sanghvi's other shows are A Matter of Taste and Vir Sanghvi's Asian Diary
on Discovery Travel and Living and Tycoons and On The Record on CNBC. Since January
2016, he has been a Resident Commentator on CNN News 18, the revamped CNN IBN news
channel and hosts the weekly political show Virtuosity.
His historical series on Indian elections, Mandate With Destiny, on News X, was
turned into a bestselling book called Mandate.
Sanghvi's books include Men of Steel (published by Roli Books), one of the biggest
paperback bestsellers in the history of Indian publishing which has been translated
into 8 Indian languages. His other books are Rude Food and Madhavrao Scindia, A
Biography (Penguin) and India – Then and Now (Roli).
In 2015 Sanghvi co-founded EazyDiner, an online restaurant reservation service that
has become the leader in its field.
Vir Sanghvi has won many awards during his career for both TV and print including
the Rajiv Gandhi Award, the Lokmanya Tilak Award, the Cointreau Award for Best Food
Literature Book in the world for Rude Food, and innumerable TV prizes. In 1993,
he was declared A Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum at Davos.
He has been a member of many professional, academic and government bodies including
the National Integration Council. Currently, he is a member of the Broadcast Content
Complaint Council (BCCC), a body that regulates content on entertainment TV channels.