Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is a journalist, political commentator, author and a documentary film maker. His works have appeared in print, radio, television and documentaries. He is also a regular guest faculty member at a number of top educational institutions like the Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Shillong, the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Asian College of Journalism and Jamia Millia Islamia. Guha Thakurta was appointed Editor of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in January 2016 replacing C Rammanohar Reddy, who steered the prestigious journal since 2004. Guha Thakurta resigned as editor of EPW on July 18, 2017 over alleged differences with the board of the Sameeksha Trust that runs the journal.
Guha Thakurta co-authored an article about the Adani Group's tax evasion following which Adani Power sent a legal notice to the Economic and Political Weekly. Fearing an expensive lawsuit by one of India’s biggest corporate houses EPW then decided to take down the article, prompting Paranjoy Guha Thakurta's resignation.
Guha Thakurta was a member of the sub-committee set up by the Press Council of India to look into the malaise of paid news. Initially, the report titled '‘Paid News: How Corruption in the Indian Media Undermines Democracy" was to be released on 26 April 2010, but it was deferred after many members of the Council raised objections. A diluted version of the report, which was released on 30 July 2010, raised a storm. A number of newspaper establishments were named as having indulged in editorial malpractices. These included Bennett, Coleman and Co (owners of The Times of India), HT Media (owners of Hindustan Times, Hindustan and Mint), Dainik Jagaran, Dainik Bhaskar, Punjab Kesari, Lokmat, Eenadu, and Sakshi group, among others.
In September 2010, the Central Information Commission (CIC) of India directed the Council to make public the report as part of suo motu disclosure mandated under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Guha Thakurta has since written extensively on the issue of "paid news".
Guha Thakurta was one of many well-known people who joined a public interest litigation in the 2G spectrum case, originally filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) led by lawyer Prashant Bhushan. He has written extensively on the scam, with the first article on the subject appearing in The Economic Times in November 2007. Soon after its publication, a legal notice was served on him by Reliance Communications.