Rajdeep Sardesai, 59, is an award-winning senior journalist, author and TV news presenter. His latest book 2019: How Modi Won India is a national bestseller, as was his previous book 2014: The Election that Changed India. He is also the author of Democracy’s Eleven: The Great Story of Indian Cricket.

Currently the consulting editor and lead news anchor of the India Today group, Rajdeep has over three decades of journalistic experience in print and television. He was the founder editor of the IBN 18 network and before that was Managing Editor of NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India. He has won more than 50 awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for Journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots, the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism award in 2007 and the 2019 Prem Bhatia award for political journalism for analysis of the 2019 elections. He has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy a record ten times and in 2020 was conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual news broadcasting awards. He writes a fortnightly column across several newspapers, has his own blog site and is the third most followed journalist in the world on the social media site X.