Kanchan Gupta (

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

: কাঞ্চন গুপ্ত) is an Indian

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

, political analyst, and activist.

Early life and education

Born to

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

i refugee parents, Kanchan Gupta was raised in Jamshedpur and

Patna Patna ( ), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...

where he attended missionary schools. He later moved to

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

where he studied English literature, political science and economics at St Xavier’s College, University of Calcutta.

Journalism career

In 1982, he joined ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'' as a sub-editor on the news desk, where he learned editing from M.J. Akbar. In 1987, he was invited to join ''

The Statesman A statesman or stateswoman typically is a politician who has had a long and respected political career at the national or international level. Statesman or Statesmen may also refer to: Newspapers United States * ''The Statesman'' (Oregon), a n ...

'' by the paper's then-editor,

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray Sunanda K. Datta-Ray is an Indian journalist. He has been editor of ''The Statesman'' (Calcutta and New Delhi) and has also written for the '' International Herald Tribune'' and ''Time''. He was editor-in-Residence at the East-West Center in Hon ...

. He became the youngest Assistant Editor in The Statesman’s history. In 1991, he moved to Delhi with a new assignment as Assistant Editor of '' The Pioneer'', then edited by

Vinod Mehta Vinod Mehta (31 May 1942 – 8 March 2015) was an Indian journalist, editor and political commentator. He was also the founder editor-in-chief of ''Outlook'' from 1995 to 2012 and had been editor of publications such as '' The Pioneer'', ''The S ...

. He was promoted to Deputy Editor in 1994. He took a break from journalism from 1995 to 2004. He returned to journalism in 2004, and again joined ''The Pioneer'' for some time, edited by Chandan Mitra. Kanchan Gupta writes on national and regional politics, international affairs and security issues. His weekly column, Coffee Break, appears in ''The Pioneer'' every Sunday. He writes a weekly column for the popular Mumbai daily, ''MidDay''. He participates in Indian television programs on political and national security issues. He is politically conservative, socially liberal. He lives by the precepts of the

Brahmo Samaj Brahmo Samaj ( bn, ব্রহ্ম সমাজ, Brahmô Sômaj, ) is the societal component of Brahmoism, which began as a monotheistic reformist movement of the Hindu religion that appeared during the Bengal Renaissance. It was one of t ...

Political career

In December 1995, he gave up full-time journalism to concentrate on a public career and began to assist

L.K. Advani Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. Advani is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a longtime memb ...

and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in their parliamentary work. As an official in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) when the NDA came to power, he worked in close association with

National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...

Brajesh Mishra Brajesh Chandra Mishra (29 September 1928 – 28 September 2012) was an Indian diplomat from the Indian Foreign Service and politician, best known for serving as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's principal secretary and National Security ...

on foreign affairs and security issues. He was the PMO’s representative on the National Security Advisory Board. As part of the Government’s public diplomacy initiative in Arab countries, and to engage and influence opinion-makers and the intelligentsia in the Middle East, Kanchan Gupta was sent to Egypt as director of the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

. He held this post till 2004. In June 2021, Gupta was appointed Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

References

External links

*
Kanchan Gupta's Personal Blog - Agent Provocateur
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gupta, Kanchan Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Bengali Hindus 20th-century Bengalis 21st-century Bengalis Brahmos Indian journalists Indian newspaper journalists 20th-century Indian journalists 21st-century Indian journalists Indian male journalists Indian columnists Indian bloggers University of Calcutta alumni Writers from Patna Male bloggers Journalists from West Bengal Indian political writers Indian editors Indian activists Indian political journalists Indian opinion journalists Indian foreign policy writers Scholars of Indian foreign policy