Nidhi Razdan resigns as NDTV executive editor days after Srinivasan Jain’s exit

Noted journalist and anchor Nidhi Razdan has quit NDTV, three days after her colleague Sreenivasan Jain put in his papers after the news organization was taken over by Adani group.

Announcing her resignation on Tuesday, Razdan in a tweet said that her journey with the channel has been a “roller coaster ride but you have to know when to get off”. She worked with the NDTV 24×7 for over two decades.

On Saturday, Sreenivasan Jain, who hosted the shows Reality Check and Truth vs Hype, had announced his resignation on Twitter. “The decision to resign wasn’t easy, but…it is what it is. More later.”

While the journalists who quit recently did not spell out reason for the decision, news portal The Wire reported that “there is some disquiet within the channel at the manner in which the recent Hindenberg-Adani story has been covered.”

It writes: “The news desk was told to keep off the story for the first three days until it became impossible not to take note of the hammering that Adani group shares were receiving at the stock market.” The NDTV’s new editorial management ensured that none of the channel’s popular primetime programmes chose the Hindenburg-Adani issue as a debate topic, added the portal.

Razdan anchored “Left, Right and Centre” show. In November 2020, she had won the International Press Institute India award for excellence in journalism for her reporting of the Kathua rape and murder case in Jammu and Kashmir.

Journalist Ravish Kumar and NDTV Group president Suparna Singh are among others who quit. NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy also left the company’s board in December 2022.

Earlier this month, Chief Strategy Officer Arijit Chatterjee, Chief Technology and Product Officer Kawaljit Singh Bedi had quit the network, according to Newslaundary.

“Their direct reportees and all heads of departments will start reporting to me with immediate effect,” wrote Sanjay Pugalia, the network’s new director, in a subsequent email to the channel’s staff.

The Adani group acquired a 27.26% equity stake in NDTV from the Roys, founders of the news broadcaster last month. A week before that, the NDTV board also appointed two nominee directors of the richest Asian Gautam Adani-run conglomerate on the board – Sanjay Pugalia and Senthil Sinniah Chengalvarayan.

Last month, the network’s founders Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy sold 27.26 percent of their remaining 32.26 percent shareholding to the Adani conglomerate, according to Newslaundary. After an open offer, the Adani Group earlier emerged as the majority shareholder in NDTV. The open offer came after the media arm of Adani Enterprises acquired nearly 30 percent of NDTV shares through an indirect deal.

In December, after his first media interaction after the takeover, Adani had told India Today that “NDTV will be a credible, independent, global network with a clear lakshman rekha between management and editorial”.

-INDIA NEWS STREAM