Anita Pratap is an
expatriate
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
Indian writer and journalist.
In 1983, she was the first journalist who interviewed
LTTE
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; ta, தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், translit=Tamiḻīḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ, si, දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි, t ...
chief
V. Prabhakaran. She won the
George Polk award
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award ...
for TV reporting for her television journalism related to the takeover of
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acc ...
by the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
.
She was India bureau chief for
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 t ...
.
She has written the book ''Island of Blood'' based on
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
.
In 2013 she was presented with the Shriratna award by the Kerala Kala Kendram an organisation associated to the
Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi
Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy is located in Thrissur city, of Kerala, in India. It was established on 26 April 1958, inaugurated by then Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The academy started a cultural centre at the Bahrain Keral ...
.
She was nominated as the
Aam Aadmi Party
The Aam Aadmi Party (; AAP) is a political party in India, as one of the national political parties. The AAP was founded in November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal and his then-companions following the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, popula ...
candidate from Ernakulam, Kerala, for the
2014 Lok Sabha elections
General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...
.
Early life
Anita was born in
Kottayam
Kottayam () is a municipal town in the Indian state of Kerala. Flanked by the Western Ghats on the east and the Vembanad Lake and paddy fields of Kuttanad on the west. It is the district headquarters of Kottayam district, located in south- ...
, Kerala, in a
Syrian Catholic family. Her father was employed with a
Tata Group
The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continent ...
enterprise, he was posted at different locations in India taking his family with him. As a child Anita changed seven schools in eleven years. She passed
Senior Cambridge
The Senior Cambridge examinations were General Certificate of Education examinations held in India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Singapore. They were preceded by the Junior Cambridge and Preliminary Cambridge examinations.
History India
The ...
from a
Loreto School Kolkata and did her BA – English from
Miranda House
Miranda House is a constituent college for women at the University of Delhi in India. Established in 1948, it is one of the top ranked colleges of the country and ranked as number 1 for consecutively six years (as of 2022).
History
Miranda ...
, New Delhi, in 1978 and diploma in journalism from
Bangalore University
Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Universi ...
.
Career
After completing her diploma in journalism, Anita was recruited by
Arun Shourie, the then editor of ''
The Indian Express
''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split bet ...
'' in Delhi. She then transferred to Bangalore to live with her parents. Shortly after, she joined ''Sunday Magazine''. Her interest in journalism was in international politics and that led her to the ethnic conflicts in
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. She visited many sites to gather first-hand information. In 1983, she interviewed
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; ta, தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், translit=Tamiḻīḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ, si, දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි, t ...
's (LTTE) chief
Velupillai Prabhakaran
Velupillai Prabhakaran (; ta, வேலுப்பிள்ளை பிரபாகரன்; , (26 November 1954 – 18 May 2009) was a Sri Lankan Tamil guerrilla and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE ...
.
This became the first ever interview Prabhakaran gave to the world in which he talked about his philosophies of establishing LTTE, of taking matters in his own hands rather than relying on government and of his plans ahead. Anita was immediately recognised on an international level. She continued her work in Sri Lanka and later in 2003 published her first book ''Island of Blood'' about her experiences of living in a terror-stricken areas.
Anita also worked for ''
India Today
''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new onl ...
'' and then was a correspondent for ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'' magazine for eight years. Post
1993-bombings in Bombay (now
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the '' de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...
), she also interviewed
Bal Thackeray
Bal Thackeray (; 23 January 1926 – 17 November 2012), also known as Balasaheb Thackeray, was an Indian politician who founded the Shiv Sena, a right-wing pro- Marathi and Hindu nationalist party active mainly in the state of Maharashtr ...
for ''Time''; he was the then the chief of
Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena (IAST: ''Śiva Sēnā'') () was a Right-wing politics, right-wing to Far-right politics, far-right Marathi people, Marathi Regionalism (politics), regionalist and Hindu nationalism, Hindu ultranationalist political party in India f ...
which was the leading opposition party in
Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country sub ...
. In 1996, she joined
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 t ...
, her first experience as a television journalist. She worked from the Atlanta and the Bangkok bureaus for a short while to get experience. She then covered news on the Taliban's takeover of Kabul for which she was presented with the
George Polk Award
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award ...
.
Switching to television from print media, Anita also made various documentaries on social issues and arts. In ''Light Up the Sky'', she showcases the transformation of
insurgent Mizoram into a democratic state. Her documentary, ''Orphans of an Ancient Civilization'', notes the plights of craftsmen and ''When The Soul Glows'' documents folk dance traditions. The ''Shabash Hallelujah'' was a documentary on the
Naga Regiment. Co-authoring with a Bangalore-based photographer Mahesh Bhatt, she published her second book ''Unsung'' in 2007 which told stories of nine ordinary Indian people who served the society.
Awards and honours
* 1997 –
George Polk Award
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award ...
* 1997 – Eminent Indian Award conferred by the Indo-American Society
* 1998 –
Chameli Devi Jain Award for "Outstanding Woman Media Person"
* 2010 – "Noble Laureate as Media Citizen" by Karmaveer Puraskaar
* 2013 – Shriratna Global Award
Personal life
Her first marriage was to Pratap Chandran, and she has a son Zubin from that relationship, born when she was 22 years old. Pratap Chandran was a senior reporter at ''The Indian Express'' where the two met. She subsequently divorced Chandran and took custody of her son.
In 1999, she married
Arne Roy Walther, a Norwegian diplomat. This is also Walther's second marriage.
Popular culture
The character of Jaya, played by
Nargis Fakhri
Nargis Fakhri (born October 20, 1979) is an American actress and model who primarily works in the Indian Hindi-language films. Her first role in film came with the 2011 romantic drama '' Rockstar'', for which she was nominated for Filmfare Award ...
in the 2013 Bollywood thriller, ''
Madras Cafe
''Madras Cafe'' is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language political action thriller film directed by Shoojit Sircar and starring John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri with newcomer Raashi Khanna in lead roles. The film is set in the late 1980s and early 1990s ...
'' is modelled on Anita Pratap.
In the film, Jaya interviews LTF leader Anna Bhaskaran, who is in turn, modelled on
Velupillai Prabhakaran
Velupillai Prabhakaran (; ta, வேலுப்பிள்ளை பிரபாகரன்; , (26 November 1954 – 18 May 2009) was a Sri Lankan Tamil guerrilla and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE ...
.
Works
;Books
* ''Island of Blood: Frontline Reports from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Other South Asian Flashpoints''
* ''Unsung'' , co-authored with Mahesh Bhatt, a documentary and editorial photographer based in Bangalore.
;Documentaries
* ''Orphans of an Ancient Civilization''
* ''Light Up the Sky''
* ''Shabash Hallelujah''
* ''When the Soul Glows''
References
External links
*
Review of ''Island of Blood''Shattered dreams of Ms. Anita Pratap: An interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pratap, Anita
Living people
Journalists from Kerala
Indian documentary filmmakers
George Polk Award recipients
Writers from Kottayam
Delhi University alumni
CNN people
Time (magazine) people
Aam Aadmi Party candidates in the 2014 Indian general election
Women writers from Kerala
Indian women journalists
Aam Aadmi Party politicians
21st-century Indian politicians
Politicians from Kottayam
Women in Kerala politics
20th-century Indian women writers
20th-century Indian journalists
21st-century Indian women politicians
1958 births
21st-century Indian women writers
21st-century Indian journalists
Indian women documentary filmmakers
21st-century Indian women artists
Indian women political writers
Indian political journalists
Indian political writers
Women artists from Kerala
Film directors from Kerala
21st-century Indian film directors
Indian women film directors
People of the Sri Lankan Civil War
Indian Peace Keeping Force