Rohit Sardana (22 September 1979 30 April 2021) was an Indian anchor, journalist, and editor. He had hosted ''Taal Thok Ke'', a debate programme of

Zee News Zee News is an Indian Hindi-language news channel owned by Subhash Chandra's Essel Group. It launched on 27 August 1999 and is the flagship channel of the Zee Media Corporation. The channel has been involved in several controversies and has ...

before leaving for

Aaj Tak ''Aaj Tak'' () is an Indian Hindi-language news channel owned by TV Today Network, part of the New Delhi-based media conglomerate Living Media group (India Today Group) Aaj Tak HD On 14 December 2018, Aaj Tak launched India's first Hindi h ...

in 2017, where he anchored the prime time show ''Dangal''.

Early life and education

Sardana had a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology. From 2000 to 2002, Sardana completed his academic work to earn a post-graduate degree in mass communication from

Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, was founded in 1995. The jurisdiction of the university extends to the courses being run in the areas of science, technology, engineering, pharmacy and management. Guru Jambheshwar ...

Career

From March 2002 to July 2003, Sardana worked as a copy-editor. As a trainee copy-editor, Sardana was exposed to the technicalities of anchoring, copywriting, editing, production, and post-production work. Along with learning these skills, Sardana studied the functioning of a 24-hour news channel. Sardana worked as an assistant producer at

Sahara Samay Sahara India Pariwar (''pariwar'' being Hindi for "family") is an Indian conglomerate headquartered in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. The group operates business sectors such as finance, infrastructure & housing, real estate, sports, power, ma ...

from 2003 to 2004. Since 2004, Sardana worked at

in the capacity of an executive editor, anchor, news presenter and host for the network's Hindi language programmes. He was a senior anchor at

. Sardana formerly worked with the

ETV Network ETV Network is a network of Telugu language news and entertainment satellite television channels in India. It is based in Hyderabad. It also had some non Telugu language satellite television channels. All non-Telugu language satellite televisi ...

and Akashvani. Sardana also produced ''Karmakshetra'', where MPs were assessed and "report card" was created by Sardana on the work of the MPs for their respective constituency in advance of the

2014 Indian general election 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 ...

s. He hosted a show called ''Dangal'' (translation: Arena) on Aaj Tak which featured debate panels. The show has been compared to

Radio Rwanda Radio Rwanda (est. 1961) is a radio station of the Rwandan Broadcasting Agency (RBA), a public broadcaster that also owns Rwandan Television (RTV), Magic FM and other public radio stations. Before the attack of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) ...

and he was criticised for demonizing Muslims, encouraging

jingoism Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...

and strengthening the Hindu-Muslim dichotomy through his show. Sardana was considered to be a part of the pro-government media establishment in India and has also been criticised for subservience towards

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

and the ruling

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

. In 2018, he was awarded the Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Puraskar award by the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

Death

Sardana died of a heart attack after testing positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

at a private hospital in New Delhi. President

Ram Nath Kovind Ram Nath Kovind (; born 1 October 1945) is an Indian politician who served as the 14th President of India from 2017 to 2022. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the second person after K. R. Narayanan, from the Dalit community ...

, PM

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

Deputy Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

Manish Sisodia Manish Sisodia (born 5 January 1972) is an Indian politician and Deputy Chief Minister of Government of Delhi. He has been the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi since February 2015. He is also an elected (third consecutive term) MLA from Patpargan ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

Ashok Gehlot Ashok Gehlot (born 3 May 1951) politician serving as the current Chief Minister of Rajasthan. He held this position from December 1998 to 2003, and from 2008 to 2013, and again from 17 December 2018. He represents Sardarpura constituency of Jo ...

Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports is a branch of the Government of India which administers the Department of youth affairs and the Department of Sports in India. Anurag Thakur is the current Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports followed ...

Kiren Rijiju Kiren Rijiju (born 19 November 1971) is an Indian politician from Arunachal Pradesh who serves as the Cabinet Minister of Law and Justice in the Government of India. Early life Rijiju was born on 19 November 1971 at Nakhu near Nafra in West K ...

Union Home Minister The Minister of Home Affairs (or simply, the Home Minister, short-form HM) is the head of the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India. One of the senior-most officers in the Union Cabinet, the chief responsibility of the Home Minist ...

Amit Shah Amit Anil Chandra Shah (born 22 October 1964) is an Indian politician currently serving as the Minister of Home Affairs since 2019 and the first Minister of Co-operation of India since 2021. He served as the President of the Bharatiya Janata P ...

Defence Minister A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

Rajnath Singh Rajnath Singh (; born 10 July 1951) is an Indian politician serving as the Defence Minister of India. He is currently the Deputy Leader of the House Lok Sabha. He is the former President of Bharatiya Janata Party. He has previously served as t ...

among many expressed their condolences on his death.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sardana, Rohit 1979 births 2021 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in India Indian male television journalists Indian television news anchors Indian political journalists Indian columnists Journalists from Haryana People from Kurukshetra