Ajit Kumar JHA is launching the GULF Tribune from Doha, Qatar in Feb-March 2006. He will be the Editor, of the new English-French daily, a fiercely independent editorially driven newspaper which plans to build a brand as respected in the Middle East as Al Jazeera, the TV channel broadcasted from Doha. These days Ajit is busy recruiting for the paper, working out strategic partnerships with other news agencies and newspapers globally and working out the editorial policy as well the layout, design, and other details.
Until recently, Ajit has been the Editor, of Oman Tribune, at Muscat, Oman. Ajit launched the Oman Tribune in 2004 and managed to turn the media market upside down in a short interval. Under Ajit’s leadership Oman Tribune turned out to be the number one editorial product of Oman. Ajit received Oman’s most prestigious award for his series on the paradoxes of Omanisation and liberalisation.
In India, Ajit was a senior editor at India Today in New Delhi. India Today is the country's leading newsmagazine. He headed the election cell of the magazine and was the leading psephologist (pollster) for the TV Today networks (Aaj Tak and Headlines Today). Other than conducting national level opinion polls he wrote extensively on politics, development and other issues.
In the past, Ajit has been the Senior Associate editor with The Indian Express in New Delhi. He looked after The Sunday Express and has also launched the Lucknow edition of the paper and has been a Resident Editor of the Bombay Edition.
He was previously with The Times of India as their Resident Editor for the Patna edition and as a senior assistant editor for their editorial page in New Delhi. He also taught at the Times School of Journalism and Management.
He has worked as an Assistant Editor for The Hindustan Times, in New Delhi and has been the California Correspondent for India Today. All three newspapers are leading English language dailies in India.
He writes on subjects both global and local issues. Areas of special interest include international politics, democracy and economic development and the environment.
AS a graduate student, Ajit attended the University of California, Los Angeles, USA for a doctorate in political science and has an M Litt in Politics from the University of Oxford, England. His research on Democracy and Development included finding the links between electoral outcomes and development programmes.
At Oxford, he wrote a thesis on the politics of economic crisis. He has also taught at the UCLA for four years. He was awarded the Inlaks Scholarship and the Radhakrishnan Bequest while at Oxford, the American Institute of Indian Studies fellowship from the Smithsonian Foundation at the UCLA. He was also a Salzburg Seminarist and received the Lead Fellowship in 1998. He also attended the 10th World Report conference at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta and in New York. He is a LEAD Fellow.
This biography was last updated on January 24, 2006