Niret Alva is an Indian television producer who is the co-founder and chairman of television production company
Miditech
Miditech Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian television production company based in Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Bangalore, India. It was founded in 1992 by brothers, Niret Alva and Nikhil Alva and is today a Rs 50-crore television software company.
The company ...
.
Miditech first made a documentary series on the environment, ''Living on the Edge'' for
Doordarshan
Doordarshan (abbreviated as DD; Hindi: , ) is an Indian public service broadcaster founded by the Government of India, owned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and one of Prasar Bharati's two divisions. One of India's largest b ...
, and went on to make documentaries for the BBC, Discovery and National Geographic, before entering the entertainment genre around 2004, with ''
Indian Idol
''Indian Idol'' is the Indian music competition television franchise based on the ''Pop Idol
''Pop Idol'' is a British music competition television series created by Simon Fuller which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show wa ...
'' (2004–2009), ''
Galli Galli Sim Sim
''Galli Galli Sim Sim'' is the Hindi language adaptation of the American children's television series ''Sesame Street'' (famous for its Muppets), for India. The show debuted in 2006.
For its first five seasons it was co-produced by Sesame Wor ...
'' (
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) and ...
) (2006), and ''
Wheels
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be ...
'' (1998) (
BBC World
BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
).
Early life and education
Niret Alva was born in
Bangalore
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
– the first child of lawyers Niranjan and
Margaret Alva
Margaret Nazareth Alva ( born 14 April 1942) is an Indian politician. Alva served as the 17th Governor of Goa, 23rd Governor of Gujarat, 20th Governor of Rajasthan and 4th Governor of Uttarakhand the until the end of her tenure in August 2014. ...
. Alva has two brothers, Nikhil and Nivedith, and a sister, Manira, with whom he manages Miditech. His name is a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words The family moved to Delhi in 1974 when his mother was elected to the
Rajya Sabha
The Rajya Sabha, wikisource:Constitution of India/Part V#Article 80, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legisl ...
(the upper house of India's parliament). She went on to serve as minister of state in
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to bec ...
and Narasimha Rao's governments. A prominent parliamentarian, she served four consecutive terms in the Rajya Sabha and one in the
Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-pas ...
.
Alva is a graduate in history from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, has a post graduate diploma in journalism from the
Indian Institute of Mass Communication
Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) is an Indian media centre of learning and civil service training institute for the Indian Information Service Cadre funded and promoted by the Government of India in New Delhi. The IIMC is an auto ...
(IIMC), Delhi, and is a recipient of a certificate from the Radio Netherlands Training Centre in Hilversum (Holland) for a news and current affairs course in television. He earned a law degree (LLB) from
Mumbai University
The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai.
The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed h ...
.
Career
Alva joined the
Press Trust of India
The Press Trust of India Ltd., commonly known as PTI, is the largest news agency in India. It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 500 Indian newspapers. It has over 500 full-time employees , including abo ...
, television, as a trainee reporter/scriptwriter in January 1988. Beginning his career when television was still government-controlled in the late 1980s, he moved on to become a correspondent with ''Eyewitness'', a monthly independent video news magazine, owned by
Hindustan Times
''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia.
It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...
Television in 1990. He covered subjects such as Indian attitudes toward sex, caste violence, the dangers of the civilian use of the army and the capture of
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to bec ...
's assassin.
In 1992, he co-founded
Miditech
Miditech Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian television production company based in Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Bangalore, India. It was founded in 1992 by brothers, Niret Alva and Nikhil Alva and is today a Rs 50-crore television software company.
The company ...
, a television software production company, along with his brother Nikhil. Miditech's program, '' Living on the Edge'', won a Panda award at
Wildscreen
Wildscreen is a wildlife conservation charity based in Bristol, England.
The charity was founded in December 1987 from a trust which had operated since 1982, with the initial aim of encouraging and applauding excellence in the production of na ...
in Bristol in 1996.
Alva has scripted, directed and been associated with several international, award winning documentaries, including ''The Great Descent'' – a river rafting journey down the Brahmaputra after the massive flood of 2000, and ''Operation Hot Pursuit'' – an undercover documentary on the illegal
ivory trade
The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants.
Ivory has been traded for hundreds of years by people in Africa and ...
between India and Japan.
Awards
* National Award for 'Outstanding Effort in Science and Technology in the Electronic Medium', awarded by President
APJ Abdul Kalam
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (; 15 October 193127 July 2015) was an Indian aerospace scientist and statesman who served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. He was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu and studied phy ...
.
* Wildscreen Panda Award, better known as the Green Oscar, for Living On The Edge.
* Asian Television Award for best Anchor in an Information Based series for Wheels on BBC world. In 2019, Niret and Nikhil Alva and their production house Miditech was inducted into the Indian television Hall of Fame.
Personal life
Alva is married to Indian author and advertising executive
Anuja Chauhan
Anuja Chauhan ( hi, अनुजा चौहान) is an Indian author, advertiser and screenwriter. As a writer, she is known for '' The Zoya Factor'' (2008), '' Battle For Bittora'' (2010), ''Those Pricey Thakur Girls'' (2013), ''The Hous ...
author of '' The Zoya Factor'' (2008) and five other best selling novels. They first met in 1989, during the production of a play in Delhi. They were married in 1994. They have three children, two girls and a boy.