An Institution By Itself. Review on India Today

India Today is a weekly news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It has a total readership of 15.9 million across all its editions, focusing on politics and current affairs, together with reports, articles and features on art, music, entertainment, sports, book, and above all the social trends. Its Hindi Edition is also named India Today and not Bharat Aj, the literal translation in Hindi.

The Editor-in-Chief is Aroon Purie, and Editor is Prabhu Chawla. The Managing Editor is Swapan Dasgupta, and Executive Editors are Dilip Bobb and Raj Chengappa. Ravi Shankar is the Deputy Editor, and the Associate Editors are Kaveree Bamzai, Ashok K. Damodaran, Rajev Deshpande, Ashok Malik, Sharda Ugra, Farzand Ahmed, Vivek Law and Amarnath K. Menon. The Senior Editors are Shankar Aiyar, Sumit Mitra, Rohit Saran and S. Prasannarajan. Kanika Gehlaut and Nisima H. Khan are the Associate Editors with Joel Rai as the Copy Editor. It has Bureaus, Correspondents and Special Correspondents all over the world. The Editorial Office of India Today is a mini India, and one wonders how the Editor-in-Chief has structured the management set-up. The structure is really complex and with functionaries having all possible designations and working at various levels, it is not known as to who reports to whom. All the same it must be fool proof, otherwise a complete news magazine like India Today would have been impossible.

I have before me the Special Issue dated January 13 2003, with a colourful cover having the photograph of Kalpana Chawla with a very broad smile. The entire magazine is printed in art paper, in one of the best printing presses of India - The Thomson Press. The body copy on the cover is ''The Global Indian DOING US PROUD.'' This issue is Vol. XXVIII, No.2, for the week January 7 - 13. It implies that the magazine is 27 years old. The contents are : Up and Away, The World's a Stage, Gold Standard, Coming of Age, Cricket World Cup, Book Review on House of Spirits, and articles and features by Guest Writers like Dipak Jain, Mira Nair, Farukh Dhondy, Bhikhu Parekh, Rajat Gupta and Swaraj Paul.

As far as I know Aroon Purie is a Chartered Accountant by profession, but he has utilised his financial expertise and experience in conceptualising, creating and establishing the India Today empire, which is an institution by itself.

The photographs, both colour and black & white, used in the magazine, either to support the articles and features, or the advertisements, are the best examples of photo-journalism. Every issue of the magazine carries the editorial by the Editor-in-Chief.

India Today has the India Today Book Club which one can join by paying an annual Membership Fee. It comes to you as a magazine showing the books meant for children and their parents. You can order for the books at very good discounts through major Credit Cards. The Magazine gifts gifts from time to time, if one subscribes for it for a longer period.

I can go on, but I suggest that to know more about India Today you visit the website https://indiatoday.com .