from living in a one-room tenement in Delhi to the city's up market Pamposh Enclave has been a long trek for Rajat Sharma, one of Indian television's best known faces. However, even he admits that luck has played an important part in shaping his life and career. One stroke of luck came in the late 1980s when Zee Telefilms supremo Subhash Chandra, looking at starting a new venture in India, convinced Sharma to conceive a TV programme that would empower the average citizen, while putting on the dock people in seats of power. Thus was Aap Ki Adalat born and the rest as they say is history. Incidentally, the show with its original name is slated to stage a comeback on Sharma's news channel - India TV.
Today, as Sharma surveys his about-to-be-finished office room on the studio complex situated on a massive 80,000 sq. ft of space, there is a look of satisfaction on his face. His life and business partner - as he loves to describe her - Ritu Dhawan comfortably pales into the shadowy background, letting Sharma hog the limelight, while she tightens the nuts and bolts of the business venture.
But apart from satisfaction, there is also a bit of anxiety as Sharma has just turned a broadcaster from being a TV software producer. His dream of having a news channel of his own has come true as India TV, a 24-hour Hindi-language news channel, attempts flexing its muscles in the already overcrowded news channel market in India. Sharma is also realising that having personal and school friends in high places - former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee's foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya, lawyer-turned-politician Arun Jaitley, Delhi University students' union neta-turned-politician Vijay Goel, former minister Pramod Mahajan, to name a few - has its pros and cons. Though he is willing to come clean on his business associates, according to one of the theories doing the rounds of the industry, India TV venture is funded by people who are sympathisers of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Still, Sharma is unfazed. He is slowly realising that one has to pay a lot for success and that too in a cut-throat world of television. In between concentrating on building on his dream, Sharma spoke to indiantelevision.com's Anjan Mitra.
Excerpts:
What has been basis of starting India TV?
For me, India TV is not merely a news channel, it's a movement to give more credibility to TV news reporting. It's an endeavour to give the viewers a feeling that there is a channel that stands up for their rights, for them. Rather, I'll invite everybody to join me in the movement.
Today, as Sharma surveys his about-to-be-finished office room on the studio complex situated on a massive 80,000 sq. ft of space, there is a look of satisfaction on his face. His life and business partner - as he loves to describe her - Ritu Dhawan comfortably pales into the shadowy background, letting Sharma hog the limelight, while she tightens the nuts and bolts of the business venture.
But apart from satisfaction, there is also a bit of anxiety as Sharma has just turned a broadcaster from being a TV software producer. His dream of having a news channel of his own has come true as India TV, a 24-hour Hindi-language news channel, attempts flexing its muscles in the already overcrowded news channel market in India. Sharma is also realising that having personal and school friends in high places - former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee's foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya, lawyer-turned-politician Arun Jaitley, Delhi University students' union neta-turned-politician Vijay Goel, former minister Pramod Mahajan, to name a few - has its pros and cons. Though he is willing to come clean on his business associates, according to one of the theories doing the rounds of the industry, India TV venture is funded by people who are sympathisers of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Still, Sharma is unfazed. He is slowly realising that one has to pay a lot for success and that too in a cut-throat world of television. In between concentrating on building on his dream, Sharma spoke to indiantelevision.com's Anjan Mitra.
Excerpts:
What has been basis of starting India TV?
For me, India TV is not merely a news channel, it's a movement to give more credibility to TV news reporting. It's an endeavour to give the viewers a feeling that there is a channel that stands up for their rights, for them. Rather, I'll invite everybody to join me in the movement.
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