Aroon Purie is an Indian media tycoon who is the founder-publisher and editor-in-chief of India Today magazine. He used to lead the India Today Group. He is the managing director of Thomson Press (India) Limited and chairman of TV Today. He is the recipient of the Padma Bhushan Award. Aroon Purie is the former editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest India. In 2017, he gave control of the India Today Group to his daughter, Kalli Purie.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Aroon Purie was born in 1944 (age 74 Years; as of 2023) in Lahore, Punjab province, British India. He has completed his school education at The Doon School, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. In 1965, he completed a bachelor’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics.
Physical Appearance
Hair Colour: Salt and Pepper
Eye Colour: Black
Family
Aroon Purie belongs to a Hindu family, and according to him, his father was a follower of the Arya Samaj community.
Parents & Siblings
His father, Vidya Vilas Purie, was the founder of the India Today Group. Vidya Vilas Purie was a film financer and the owner of Thompson Press. His sister, Madhu Trehan, is an Indian journalist.
Aroon Purie’s sister, Madhu Trehan
Wife & Children
Aroon Purie is married to Rekha Purie.
Aroon Purie with his wife
The couple has a son and two daughters. His son’s name is Ankoor Purie, and his daughters’ names are Kalli Purie and Koel Purie.
A picture of Ankoor Purie, Koel Purie’s brother
Aroon Purie’s daughter, Kalli Puri
A picture of Koel Purie
Ankoor Purie and Kalli Purie are into journalism while Koel Purie is an Indian actress.
Career
In 1970, Aroon Purie began working as a production controller at Thomson Press, a commercial printer and allied services company. Even though he later gave control of Thomson Press to his son Ankoor Purie, he still guides it. Thomson Press has five branches in different parts of India. In 1975, he started the India Today Group, which has a magazine with the same name. This group is known for its varied media approaches all across India including 32 magazines, 7 radio stations, 4 television channels, 1 newspaper, lots of websites and apps, a famous music label, and a book publishing part.
A young Aroon Purie
India Today Magazine
Vidya Vilas Purie, the father of Aroon Purie, started a magazine called India Today in 1975. Aroon’s sister Madhu Trehan was appointed as the editor, and Aroon Purie was designated as in charge of the magazine on its launch.
An old picture of Dilip Bobb, Aroon Purie, Madhu Trehan, Shirley Joshua, and Mohini Bhullar at the Taj Hotel in New Delhi
They launched the magazine when the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, declared an Emergency. Aroon Purie wanted to share information about India with people who were living in other countries through this magazine. The magazine started publishing in five languages, and lots of people in India read it. Reportedly, after its launch, it became the most popular magazine for more than ten years, with over 11 million readers. Later, Aroon Purie set the style of journalism for the Hindi news channel named Aaj Tak and the English news channel Headlines Today.
The cover of the India Today magazine
Aroon Purie interviewing Morarji Desai in New Delhi in August 1979
Other Associations
Aroon Purie is part of many groups like the Council of Management at the Audit Bureau of Circulations, where he served as a Chairman from 2000 to 2001. He is on the Executive Committee of The Editors’ Guild of India, and he’s part of the Council of Management at the All India Management Association as a special invitee. He served as the Chairman of the CII National Committee on Media from 2001 to 2002. In 2009, Aroon Purie was appointed as the chairman of FIPP (Federation of International Periodicals and Publications). Aroon Purie has been on the board of the Global Editors Network since it started in April 2011.
Controversies
Defamation Case Against India Today
Aroon Purie attracted controversy when a legal case was filed against him in April 2007 after a report titled “Mission Misconduct” was published in India Today magazine. This report talked about three Indian officials in the UK who were quickly brought back due to serious accusations of sexual misconduct, corruption in issuing visas, and selling Indian passports to illegal immigrants. The Supreme Court decided to cancel the case this case against Aroon Purie in October 2022. However, even though Chief Justice U.U. Lalit, Justice Ravindra Bhat, and Justice Bela M Trivedi dismissed the case against Purie; they did not provide relief to the writer of the news article.
Plagiarism
In 2010, CounterMedia discovered that the first two paragraphs of a 400-word article written by Purie on 18 October 2010 about the South Indian actor Rajinikanth were the same as the first 250 words in an article published by Grady Hendrix on 27 September 2010 in an online magazine titled Slate in the United States. Later, Purie apologised for the error and explained that it happened because he was tired from travelling. He mentioned that a few sentences from another article were sent to him. In reply, Hendrix wrote in Slate that the apology about jet lag was not meant to be taken seriously; it was more like a way to brush off the issue with a playful “Oops, I’m tired!” gesture. Hendrix also noted that he thought this resolved the matter well.
Awards, Honours, Achievements
- In 1988, Aroon Purie was honoured with a B.D. Goenka award for his excellence in Journalism.
- In 1990, Aroon Purie earned the “Journalist of the Year” award by the Indian Federation of Small and Medium Newspapers.
- In 1993-1994, he won the G.K. Reddy Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism.
- In 2001, he was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian award presented by the Government of India.
Aroon Purie being awarded Padma Bhushan Award by K. R. Narayanan in 2001
- In 2002, Aroon Purie received the Hall of Fame Award from the Advertising Club of Kolkata.
- In 2008, Aroon Purie was conferred with the NT Award for Lifetime Achievement from www.Indiatelevision.com.
- In March 2022, he received the ABLF lifetime achievement award for his work in Journalism.
Facts/Trivia
- According to Aroon Purie, when the first issue of the India Today magazine dated 1-15 December 1975 was released then he was designated as the person in charge (publisher), and his sister, Madhu Purie, was listed as the editor of the magazine. Aroon mentioned in the magazine that the goal of the magazine was to provide information to the people interested in India who lived outside the country.
Madhu Trehan while interviewing for India Today Group
- In 2022, while delivering a lecture at the Subhas Ghosal Memorial organised by the AAAI (Advertising Agencies Association of India) and the Subhas Ghosal Foundation, in Mumbai, Aroon Purie narrated an important moment that happened in 1980 when the India Today magazine used a method called psephology to predict the results of the general elections. Aroon Purie said,
We made the right prediction, and this really made people trust the magazine more.”
Aroon Purie while delivering the Subhas Ghosal Memorial Lecture 2022 organised by the AAAI
Categories: Biography
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