Ashwin Raman (born 18 June 1946) is a German journalist and documentary filmmaker of Indian descent. Raman is notable for a number of prize-winning documentaries which have garnered him the Grimme Prize (2017), the Robert Geisendörfer Prize (2012), Otto Brenner Special Award, the international

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

Rory Peck Award and the

Deutscher Fernsehpreis The Deutscher Fernsehpreis (''German Television Award'') is an annual German award for television programming, created in 1999 by German television channels Das Erste, ZDF, RTL and Sat.1. It was created to be an equivalent to the Emmy Awards, t ...

, among others.

Early life

Raman's father was the editor-in-chief of ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

'' (Ahmedabad edition) and his mother a teacher. After completing his bachelor's degree in literature in India, he received a scholarship for a master's degree at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. At the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. ...

in Munich he worked as a host and made his first contacts with Germany during this time. After his Master's degree he returned to India and started working as a reporter for The Times of India. At this time, India's political situation was extremely unstable owing to Indira Gandhi's

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

. Raman was imprisoned for evading censorship with an underground newspaper.

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

in Hamburg took up his case and were able to aid him to migrate to Germany.

Life in Germany

In Hamburg he began writing for

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

and

Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The ...

, although his texts initially had to be translated. He worked for Amnesty in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

for some time, wrote for the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

and then traveled to

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

as a freelance journalist, where he reported on the civil war there for various newspapers. There he also made his first documentary film With the Sandinistas (1978), which he shot in 16 mm format and sold to various television stations. After the end of the civil war in 1979, he moved back to Germany and took

German citizenship German nationality law details the conditions by which an individual holds German nationality. The primary law governing these requirements is the Nationality Act, which came into force on 1 January 1914. Germany is a member state of the Europ ...

in 1985. From the 1980s Raman devoted himself increasingly to documentary film, acquiring the necessary knowledge autodidactically. To date Raman has made over 200 documentaries as a "one-man team". Since the 2000s he has concentrated primarily on war and crisis reporting for public broadcasting, traveling to

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, and other countries. In 2019, he announced that he would be withdrawing from war reporting because he was "tired of war" and suffering from health problems. Raman lives in

Selm Selm is a town in the district of Unna, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated approximately 20 kilometers north of Dortmund and 25 kilometers west of Hamm. Geography The town belongs to the southern part of the Münsterland. It ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...

. He is married and has two sons.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raman, Ashwin 1946 births Living people Journalists from Mumbai Indian emigrants to Germany Naturalized citizens of Germany Indian journalists German documentary filmmakers Mass media people from Hamburg German male journalists German newspaper journalists German travel writers German war correspondents Amnesty International people Los Angeles Times people Alumni of the University of Oxford Der Spiegel people Die Zeit people