Sashi Kumar journalist, author and filmmaker

Sashi Kumar is the founder and Chairman of the Media Development and Asian College of Journalism. He is a print and broadcast journalist. He was among the earliest newscasters in English on national television, Doordarshan, Middle East Correspondent of The Hindu and news anchor on Radio Bahrain in the mid-1980s. He has produced many docu-features for television. In 1992 he founded and launched Asianet, India’s first satellite and cable TV in a regional language. He received the Vijayaraghavan Memorial Award in 2007 and the Swadeshabhimani-Kesari Puraskaram from the government of Kerala in 2011 for his contribution to media. In 2004 he scripted and directed Kaya Taran, an award-winning Hindi feature film based on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the 2002 Gujarat riots. He has acted in a few Malayalam feature films. Sashi writes a regular fortnightly column titled ‘Unmediated’ in Frontline; it is also the title of the book comprising his essays and articles published by Tulika Books in 2013.