Karan Thapar
Karan Thapar (born 5 November 1955) is an Indian journalist, news presenter and interviewer working with The Wire. Thapar was associated with CNN-IBN and hosted The Devil's Advocate and The Last Word. Some of the celebrities he has interviewed include Narendra Modi and Shah Rukh Khan. He was also associated with India Today, hosted the shows To the Point and Nothing But The Truth and is doing an exclusive series of Interviews with The Wire on his show Access Journalism.[1][2]
Karan Thapar
5 November 1955
Devil's Advocate
India Tonight
The Last Word
Face to Face (BBC)
Hardtalk India (BBC)
To the Point
- Pran Nath Thapar (father)
Daya Ram Thapar (uncle)
Romesh Thapar (cousin)
Romila Thapar (cousin)
Career[edit]
He began his career in journalism with The Times in Lagos, Nigeria and later worked as their Lead Writer on the Indian subcontinent till 1981. In 1982 he joined London Weekend Television in the United 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 with The Hindustan Times Television Group, Home TV and United Television before setting up his own production house in August 2001, Infotainment Television, which makes programmes for amongst others BBC, Miroshka, Doordarshan and Channel 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 are Eyewitness, Tonight at 10, In Focus with Karan, Line of Fire, War of Words Devil's Advocate and The Last Word.[11] In 2004, Thapar famously interviewed late former Chief Minister of Tamil 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 Minister Narendra Modi (then the Chief Minister of Gujarat). A few minutes after the interview started, Thapar asked a few questions regarding the Modi administrations' actions during the 2002 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 popular internet meme.[15][16][17] He later said that interviewing A. R. Rahman was the toughest in his career due to Rahman's shy nature.[18]
In 2020–21, Thapar wrote a column As I see it in the daily newspaper The Asian Age. In August 2021, the management of The 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 show The Interview with Karan Thapar after joining The Wire.[20][19]