IFJ Pays Tribute to India's Senior Journalist Ajit Bhattacha

April 6, 2011

IFJ Pays Tribute to India's Senior Journalist Ajit Bhattacharjea

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins colleagues and affiliates in paying homage to Ajit Bhattacharjea, dean among Indian journalists, who died on April 4 aged 87.

Bhattacharjea had an active career in journalism stretching from the dawn of Indian independence to the mid-1980s. He began as a reporter and sub-editor with the Hindustan Times and was among the first journalists to reach Kashmir in 1947 after violence broke out in the region following the partition of India. After a stint with the Statesman, he came back to the Hindustan Times as correspondent in Washington DC, before taking over as editor in 1967. Bhattacharjea ended his career in active journalism as editor of the Indian Express in 1983. Even in retirement, he rendered valuable advice to various newspapers both in India and abroad.

Bhattacharjea was renowned for his fearless advocacy of civil liberties, even during the period of India's "emergency" in the mid-1970s, when fundamental rights were suspended. In 1995, he was appointed Director of the Press Institute of India, where he was active in the effort to improve professional standards and turn journalistic attention towards issues of poverty and human development, which were beginning to vanish off the media agenda.

Through the early-2000s, Bhattacharjea was associated with a nation-wide movement to enact a right to information law. His was a voice of wise counsel that contributed significantly to the passage of the 2005 law that is rightly regarded as among the most far-reaching of its kind.

Bhattacharjea has written and edited several books of biography and contemporary politics.

"The IFJ has special reason to remember Bhattacharjea with respect and gratitude," said IFJ Asia-Pacific Director Jacqueline Park.

"In 2003, Bhattacharjea chaired a jury of distinguished South Asian media practitioners that judged the IFJ's inaugural 'Journalism for Tolerance' Prize."

"The IFJ expresses its deepest appreciation for a life lived by the highest values of journalistic integrity and public service."

ENDS

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