Shekhar Gupta Elected New President of Editors Guild of India

This is the first time that an editor of an online platform has been named as the president.

Shekhar Gupta is the new president of the Editors Guild of India.

(Photo Courtesy: twitter.com/ShekharGupta)

The Editors Guild of India, at its annual general body meeting held on Saturday, 14 April, unanimously elected Shekhar Gupta, the founder and editor-in-chief of news portal The Print, as its president.

This is the first time an editor of an online platform has been named as the president of the Editors Guild of India.

A K Bhattacharya, the editorial director of Business Standard, was elected as the general secretary and Sheela Bhatt, the editor (news affairs) of television channel NewsX, was elected as the treasurer, the guild said in its statement.

“The general body of the guild also placed on record its deep appreciation of the stewardship of the guild by the outgoing office bearers: Raj Chengappa, Group Editorial Director (Publishing), India Today Group, its president, Prakash Dubey, Group Editor, Dainik Bhaskar, General Secretary and Kalyani Shankar, senior editor and columnist, Treasurer,” it added

It’s been a busy year for the Editors Guild. Recently, they had issued a statement condemning the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting when they issued and retracted a directive aimed at 'curbing' fake news. In its statement, the Guild said:

By notifying that the I&B Ministry will initiate such proceedings, the Government was arrogating for itself the role of policing the media. It would have opened the door for frivolous complaints to harass journalists and organisations to fall in line.

The Editors Guild also extended their support to The Tribune reporter Rachna Khaira after an FIR was lodged against her by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) .

(With inputs from PTI.)