Prannoy Roy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Prannoy Roy
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Roy in 2014
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| Born | 15 October 1949 Calcutta, West Bengal, India
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| Known for | Co-founder of NDTV |
| Spouse(s) | Radhika Roy |
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| Awards | Asian Television Award; Red Ink Awards |
Prannoy Lal Roy (born October 15, 1949) is a famous Indian economist, journalist, and author. He helped start the news channel NDTV with his wife, Radhika Roy. He was also a co-chairperson for NDTV for many years.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Prannoy Roy was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal, India, on October 15, 1949. His father, P. L. "Hurricane" Roy, worked for a big company. His grandfather, Paresh Lal Roy, was known as the "father of Indian boxing" because he helped make the sport popular in India.
Prannoy Roy is also related to other interesting people. His great-grandmother, Lolita Roy, worked for women's rights. His great-uncle, Indra Lal Roy, was the first Indian "flying ace" (a pilot who shot down many enemy planes). He is also a cousin of the well-known writer Arundhati Roy.
School Days
Prannoy went to La Martiniere Calcutta and The Doon School. This was a private boarding school for boys in Dehradun. While at school, he met Radhika Das, who would later become his wife. Radhika also attended a boarding school for girls in Dehradun called Welham Girls' School.
After school, Prannoy and Radhika moved to London, United Kingdom, for college. Prannoy studied economics at the Queen Mary University of London and graduated with top honors in 1973. He then became a certified chartered accountant in 1975. Prannoy and Radhika got married in London. After their studies, they returned to India and settled in Delhi.
Career in Media
In India, Prannoy Roy continued his education at the Delhi School of Economics. He earned a PhD in agricultural economics in 1978. After that, he worked as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers India from 1979 to 1983.
Predicting Elections
Prannoy Roy was always very interested in election results, even as a child. He made his first election prediction for the 1977 Indian general election. This prediction was published in a magazine and correctly said that the Janata Party would win.
In the 1980s, he worked with a political scientist named David Butler and an economist named Ashok Lahiri. They wanted to make the study of elections, called psephology, more common in India. Their work led to three books. Roy also became an election expert for the India Today magazine.
For the 1984 Indian general election, Roy made a very accurate prediction. He said the Indian National Congress would win about 400 seats, which was very close to the actual result. This made him known as the most successful election predictor in India. He is credited with starting opinion polling in India between 1980 and 1995.
Starting NDTV
New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) began in 1984. It was a company that made TV shows for international news channels and for Doordarshan, India's public TV channel. Radhika and Prannoy Roy are seen as the co-founders. Radhika was a journalist before starting NDTV.
At first, Doordarshan was careful about letting private companies cover Indian news. So, NDTV was hired to make a weekly international news show called The World This Week. This show became very popular in India and had many viewers on Doordarshan.
Meanwhile, Prannoy Roy also worked as a professor at the Delhi School of Economics in 1985. From 1986 to 1987, he helped a team of economists build a large model to understand India's economy for the Ministry of Finance.
Doordarshan later hired NDTV to cover general election results and special budget sessions. The first time election results were shown live on Indian TV was in 1989, produced by NDTV. Prannoy Roy started his career as a TV journalist by covering this election. He also became a news presenter for The World This Week. Both the election coverage and the news show were very successful.
Growing NDTV
In 1995, NDTV got a contract from Doordarshan to produce a daily news show about Indian news called The News Tonight. The Roys found investors from different Indian businesses, including the big Tata Group, to help make this show. NDTV also produced other shows like The News Hour and Good Morning India.
Prannoy Roy became the main news presenter for NDTV and the public face of the channel. His wife, Radhika Roy, preferred to work behind the scenes, focusing on the editing and production of the shows.
In 1998, NDTV teamed up with Star India for five years to launch India's first independent 24-hour news channel. Around this time, there were some questions raised by the government about NDTV's contracts with Doordarshan. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) looked into these matters. These cases continued for several years. However, in 2013, a court decided that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, and everyone involved was cleared of the charges.
Radhika Roy became the managing director of NDTV in 1998, and Prannoy Roy became the chairman. The partnership with Star India ended in 2003. In the same year, NDTV launched its own independent news channels, NDTV 24x7 (in English) and NDTV India (in Hindi). The company became publicly traded in May 2004. By the end of that year, it was one of the most valuable media companies. After 2011, Prannoy and Radhika Roy became the executive co-chairpersons of NDTV.
Challenges and Changes
After Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, NDTV faced some challenges from the government. This was seen as part of a wider trend where media freedom was shrinking in the country. NDTV had reported critically on some sensitive events.
In 2016, the government tried to ban the Hindi news channel NDTV India. However, they changed their decision after many journalists protested. In 2017, government officials searched the Roys' home. Many journalists and media groups said this was an attack on press freedom.
In 2019, Prannoy Roy wrote a book called The Verdict: Decoding India’s Elections with another election expert, Dorab Sopariwala. NDTV continued to face legal issues. In June, a financial regulator (SEBI) temporarily stopped Prannoy and Radhika Roy from holding top positions in the company for two years. This was over claims that they had not shared all information about loan agreements. They appealed this decision, and a higher court paused the order. In December 2020, SEBI fined the Roys. The case went to the Supreme Court of India (SCI), which decided that the Roys did not have to pay a large deposit that a lower court had asked for.
In December 2022, Radhika and Prannoy Roy sold a large part of their shares in NDTV to the Adani Group. This made the Adani Group the biggest owner of NDTV.
Awards
Prannoy Roy has received several academic awards, including a fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust in the UK. He also won the Queen Mary Prize for his excellent results in economics.
In 2015, he received the Red Ink award from the Mumbai Press Club. This award was for his lifetime achievements and his important contributions to news television and journalism.
