Siddharth Varadarajan
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Siddharth Varadarajan (born 1965) is an Indian journalist and editor of Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy. He has reported on the NATO war against Yugoslavia, the destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the crisis in Kashmir. He now works for The Hindu as its Strategic Affairs Editor and Chief of its National Bureau, succeeding Harish Khare who was named as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's media adviser in June 2009. In 2007, he was a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley. [1]
After studying economics at the London School of Economics and Columbia University, he taught at New York University for several years before joining The Times of India as an editorial writer in 1995. In 2004, he joined The Hindu, India's leading English-language newspaper, as Deputy Editor.
In November 2005, the United Nations Correspondents Association awarded him the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize Silver Medal for Print Journalism for a series of articles, Persian Puzzle on Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. [2] In March 2006, he was awarded the Bernardo O'Higgins Order by the President of Chile -- that country's highest civilian honor for a foreign citizen -- for his contributions to journalism and to the promotion of India's relations with Latin America and Chile[3].
Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy, edited by Varadarajan, contains accounts of the violence against the Muslims of that state in India. The book was published by Penguin Books in 2002.
Recently, a report written by Mr.Varadarajan and published in The Hindu[4] quoted a former senior U.S. Government official, Stephen G. Rademaker, as acknowledging that the United States had coerced India into voting against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency generated a controversy with the Cambridge-based Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) calling for an "international investigation into U.S. coercion of IAEA members.[5]
The U.S. Ambassador in Delhi, David C. Mulford, issued a press release stating that "Mr. Rademaker is not a U.S. official and the statements attributed to him are inaccurate." The Hindu, however, denied this and claimed that the quotes attributed to Mr.Rademaker were "wholly accurate".[6]
Varadarajan is a member of the International Founding Committee of The Real News[7].
[edit] Bibliography
- Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy ISBN 0-14-302901-0
[edit] References
- ^ Reality, one bite at a time: On sabbatical
- ^ The Hindu : National : UNCA award for Siddharth Varadarajan
- ^ Latest India News @ NewKerala.Com, India
- ^ The Hindu : National : India's anti-Iran votes were coerced, says former U.S. official
- ^ Investigation into US coercion of IAEA members during votes on Iran puts State Department under pressure
- ^ The Hindu : National : `Rademaker is not a U.S. official'
- ^ [1]
[edit] External links
- Archive of Varadarajan's writings
- Review of Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy
- List of essays in the book
- UNCA award for his reports on IAEA
- Charles Glass on Sidharth Varadarajan's argument with the CPJ about Nato bombing in The Spectator
- Interview of Siddharth Varadarajan by Dr. Abbas Edalat of the Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran
