Karan Thapar | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Thapar in 2019 | |
| Born | (1955-11-05)5 November 1955 (age 70) |
| Alma mater | Pembroke College,Cambridge University (B.A.) St. Antony's College, Oxford University (Ph.D.) |
| Occupations | Journalist,News presenter |
| Employer | The Wire |
| Notable credit(s) | Devil's Advocate India Tonight The Last Word Face to Face (BBC) Hardtalk India (BBC) To the Point |
| Father | Pran Nath Thapar |
| Relatives | Daya Ram Thapar (uncle) Romesh Thapar (cousin) Romila Thapar (cousin) |
Karan Thapar (born 5 November 1955) is an Indian journalist,news presenter and interviewer working withThe Wire. Thapar was associated withCNN-IBN and hostedThe Devil's Advocate andThe Last Word. Some of the celebrities he has interviewed includedJyoti Basu,Atal Bihari Vajpayee,Mamata Banerjee,J. Jayalalithaa,Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee,Narendra Modi andShah Rukh Khan. He was also associated withIndia Today, hosted the showsTo the Point andNothing But The Truth and is doing an exclusive series of Interviews withThe Wire on his show the Interview with Karan Thapar.[1][2]
Karan Thapar is the youngest child of formerChief of the Army StaffGeneral Pran Nath Thapar and Bimla Thapar. The late journalistRomesh Thapar was his cousin, and Thapar is also a cousin to historianRomila Thapar.[3]
Thapar is also related to the family of Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru. Nehru's niece, the writerNayantara Sahgal, was married to Gautam Sahgal, brother of Bimla Thapar, his mother.[4]
Thapar is an alumnus ofThe Doon School inDehradun andStowe School in England. While at Doon, Thapar was the editor-in-chief of the school magazine,The Doon School Weekly.[5]
Thapar graduated with a degree in Economics and Political Philosophy fromPembroke College,Cambridge University, in 1977.[6] In the same year, he was also the president of theCambridge Union.[7] After which he obtained a doctorate in International Relations fromSt. Antony's College, Oxford University.[8]
He began his career in journalism withThe Times inLagos,Nigeria and later worked as their Lead Writer on the Indian subcontinent till 1981. In 1982 he joinedLondon Weekend Television in theUnited Kingdom where he worked for the next 11 years. In London he was one of the co-presenters of Eastern Eye magazine program for South Asian minorities in UK.[9][10] He moved to India in 1991 and worked withThe Hindustan Times Television Group,Home TV andUnited Television before setting up his own production house in August 2001, Infotainment Television, which makes programmes for amongst othersBBC,Miroshka,Doordarshan andChannel News Asia.[11]
Thapar is noted for his aggressive interviews with leading politicians and celebrities.[12] A few of his shows which have been much watched areEyewitness,Tonight at 10,In Focus with Karan,Line of Fire,War of WordsDevil's Advocate andThe Last Word.[11] In 2004, Thapar famously interviewed late former Chief Minister ofTamil Nadu,J. Jayalalithaa. It ended with Jayalalithaa snapping at him and tossing the mic on the table, saying that "it wasn't a pleasure talking to you" and chose to leave with a "Namaste" not responding to his handshake.[13] In 2007, Thapar also famously interviewed current Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi (then the Chief Minister ofGujarat). A few minutes after the interview started, Thapar asked a few questions regarding the Modi administrations' actions during the2002 Gujarat riots. Modi abruptly stopped the interview just three minutes in[14] while saying "dosti bani rahe" (Hindustani for "Let the friendship be intact") which became a popularinternet meme.[15][16][17] He later said that interviewingA. R. Rahman was the toughest in his career due to Rahman's shy nature.[18]
In 2020–21, Thapar wrote a columnAs I see it in the daily newspaperThe Asian Age. In August 2021, the management ofThe Asian Age objected to Thapar's regular column after he wrote about the '1947 Violence Against Jammu Muslims'. The violence against the Muslim residents of Jammu during the partition led to their mass displacement from the Jammu region. Thapar stopped writing for the column and said,
The 1947 violence against Jammu's Muslims that unfolded over a period of three-four months in 1947 is well-documented and has been historically accounted for. It is something that no one can contest. So I gather that the owners are under enormous pressure, presumably from Mr.Modi and Mr.Shah.[19]
As of 2021, he is doing the regular showThe Interview with Karan Thapar after joiningThe Wire.[20][19]
In November 2024, Karan Thapar was issued a summons by the Assam Police’s Crime Branch under Section 152 of theBharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which pertains to acts “endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.” The notice related to an interview published onThe Wire’s YouTube channel, in which remarks made by a guest were alleged to have violated the provision.[21][22]
a meme in reference to Modi's infamous interview with Karan Thappar where he did not answer the 'difficult questions'.
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