Ajit Anjum is a seasoned Indian journalist with over three decades of experience in the field of journalism. During his career, he has worked in senior roles with several leading news media houses including India Today, Aaj Tak and News 24. In his desire to work independently, Ajit started a YouTube channel in his own name in March 2020. On his YouTube channel he uploads videos related to news and trending topics with extensive ground reporting.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Ajit Anjum was born on Monday 7 April 1969 (age 52 years; as in 2021) in Begusarai district, Bihar, India. His zodiac sign is Aries. Due to his father’s frequent transfers, Ajit attended school in different cities. One of the schools where he studied was Town High School, Hajipur. He passed 12th class from Darbhanga and then completed his graduation in History Honors from Langat Singh College, Muzaffarpur, affiliated to Bihar University.
Young Ajit Anjum (on the right) with his friends during his college days.
family and caste
parents and siblings
His father, Ramsagar Prasad Singh, was a district court judge in Bihar. Ramsagar died of a heart attack on 20 March 2011.
Ajit Anjum with his parents
wife and children
Ajit Anjum is married to Geeta Shree, who is a journalist by profession. They also have a daughter named Jiya.
Ajit Anjum’s wife Geeta Shri and daughter Jiya
Ajit Anjum with his daughter Jiya
livelihood
impression
While studying in college, Ajit developed interest in reading and writing news. His first writing to be published in a newspaper was a letter to the editor which he wrote to the editor of Pataliputra Times. This is from 1987. He was in college at that time. To get a better understanding of journalism, he started reading various popular newspapers and magazines of that time, like ‘Hindustan Dainik’ and ‘Nav Bharat Times’. Also, collect ground reports about the problems in neighboring cities, write about them and send articles to regional and national newspapers of Delhi. Gradually newspapers started publishing his works. This strengthened his determination to pursue journalism as a professional career. In his early journalism days, he worked as a freelancer for several regional dailies like Dharmayug, Saptahik Hindustan, Dinmaan and Sunday. He secured his first full-time job in 1989 as a news writer at a regional newspaper, Chhoti Duniya. At that time, one did not need a journalism degree to be recruited as a journalist. He did ground reporting for Small World during the 1989 Indian general election.
A picture from the early 90s in which young Ajit Anjum goes for ground reporting in Nainital on his Hero Honda bike
After being admitted to Amar Ujala in 1990, he came to Delhi. He worked as a reporter in Amar Ujala from 1990 to 1994.
broadcast
In 1994, he joined BAG Films as a freelancer. His work also included making investigative documentaries on various subjects for Doordarshan.
A snapshot of the days when Ajit Anjum (on the right) was making documentaries for BAG Films
After working as a freelancer for three months, he joined BAG Films as a permanent employee in 1995. He got Rs. Used to meet. When he joined the job, his salary was Rs 10,000. He joined Aaj Tak news channel in 2002, worked there for a year and then joined BAG Films in 2001. He returned to BAG Films as several programs were being planned for Star News, a subsidiary of BAG Films at that time. Over the next few years, he conceptualized several shows on Star News including Pol Khol (started in 2004), Red Alert and Sansani. In 2007, BAG Films launched News24 news channel and appointed Ajit Anjum as its managing editor.
Ajit left his job at News 24 and took up the position of Managing Director at India TV in 2014.
He left India TV in 2017 and started doing freelance journalism. Later, Associated Broadcasting Company Private Limited (ABCPL) launched its Hindi news channel TV9 Bharatvarsh in March 2019 and appointed Ajit Anjum as its consulting editor.
Ajit Anjum is hosting a show on News 24
Within a span of a few months, in September 2019, he left TV9 Bharatvarsha due to some differences with the channel. One of them (as stated by Ajit himself) was that his program on TV9 Bharatvarsh, ‘Debate with Ajit Anjum’ was reduced from an hour to half an hour. Ajit told in an interview that the management team of TV9 Bharatvarsh was uncomfortable with the way he was critical about the current BJP rule in the country and the way he harshly asked questions to people from the ruling party. With his resignation from TV9 Bharatvarsh, he also ended his career on television news channels. Here is a tweet he posted after his resignation.
Today I broke my ties with TV9 Bharatvarsh along with these few devotees. pic.twitter.com/sl6d8aPIyF
– Ajit Anjum (@azitanjum) 6 September 2019
In another tweet he wrote, “Now I am free.” With all the restrictions and limitations. My anger was not allowing him to bear all this.
youtube
As Ajit Anjum explained, the restrictions that were imposed on him while working in mainstream media houses were compromising his journalistic ethics, so he decided to continue his journalism career on YouTube. He started a YouTube news channel under his name ‘Ajit Anjum’ in March 2020.
According to an interview with Kumar Shyam in February 2021, Anjum said that given the current state of Indian media, he would never want to return to any television news channel. He said that working independently on YouTube has given him great satisfaction and he considers it the golden period of his journalism career.
Awards and Achievements
- For his tremendous reporting and coverage during the Bihar floods in 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award.
- In view of his efforts in journalism, in 2016, Fame magazine included him in the list of 50 most powerful people of Bihar.
- He was awarded the National Dushyant Kumar Award in 2017.
Facts/General Knowledge
- Ajit was not born with the surname Anjum. Even till the initial days of his career, his full name was Ajit Kumar. He changed his surname from ‘Kumar’ to ‘Anjum’ because the name Ajit Kumar was quite common among news writers in those days.
- Ajit met his wife Geeta Shree when he was working as a reporter for Amar Ujala in the early 90s. Initially, Ajit’s family was against their marriage; However, after some time he accepted it.
Young Ajit Anjum (standing with his back) with his wife and other news media reporters
- In his career, he has interviewed many prominent personalities from all walks of life, including former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, legendary Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan and many others.
Young Ajit Anjum preparing for Amitabh Bachchan’s interview
- Ajit Anjum travels in his Toyota Fortner SUV.
- He likes watching old Hindi movies, his favorite actor being Shahrukh Khan.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn