Hello! my name is Kunāl Majumder

With 17 years in journalism, media leadership, and academia, I’ve dedicated my career to advancing press freedom and fostering innovation. Currently, as a Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, I’m studying AI, U.S. foreign policy, and entrepreneurship, focusing on leveraging public policy to enhance journalist protections. Previously, as the India Representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, I led efforts to document press freedom violations and advocate for journalist safety. I continue to support impactful journalism as an advisor to the Impulse Model Press Lab and have taught as a visiting faculty member at Jamia Millia Islamia University. Throughout my career, I’ve held leadership roles at major Indian media outlets like Tehelka, Indian Express, and Zee Media, launching platforms like Catch News and InUth to engage young audiences. Throughout my career, my work on issues ranging from rural reporting to gender sensitivity has earned recognition, including awards and fellowships such as the EUVP Fellowship, the Jan Mitra Award, the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting and UNFPA-Laadli Award for Gender Sensitivity.
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India’s regent Prime Minister

by Kunal Majumder 5 minutes read.

A slew of articles have appeared recently in foreign press, including Time Magazine, Foreign Affairs and The Economist, on the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s leadership abilities. After the departure of Pranab Mukherjee from the finance ministry, the PM has taken over his original job. He is credited for having fathered the economic liberalisation process in India as finance minister in the 1990s. However, somewhere between the criticism and counter-criticism and the rhetoric on good and bad economics, people seem to have missed the original reason for the mess in the Singh government. One of the first agencies to criticise the government was Standard and Poor’s (S&P), which pointed out 10 reasons for a possible downgrading of India’s credit ratings. Five of these reasons were clearly political: divided leadership, Sonia Gandhi holding no cabinet position, an unelected PM who has no political base, his limited influence over the cabinet, and the Congress party being divided on economic policies.

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A half-life. And a rat’s death

by Kunal Majumder 3 minutes read.

HOW MANY more deaths will it take for the Meghalaya government to wake up to the reality of child-miners in the rat-hole mines of the state? On 9 July, 15 young lives were lost in the rat-holes in south Garo Hills. Trapped in the mines after rainwater flooded them, all hope of a rescue was lost. As this goes to press, authorities are still searching for bodies.

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Omerta reigns after honour killing

by Kunal Majumder 3 minutes read.

ON 17 JUNE, which ironically was Father’s Day, Aagar Singh Solanki beheaded his 18-year-old daughter Manju with a sword. He then walked around Dungarji ka Guda village of Rajsamand district, 400 km from Rajasthan capital Jaipur, with the decapitated head and the sword, warning others against following his daughter’s footsteps. Later, he surrendered at the local police station.

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Reaping Israeli Fruit on Indian Soil

by Kunal Majumder 6 minutes read.

DRIVING SOUTHEAST of Bikaner, Rajasthan, all that meets one’s eyes is the sand and shrubs. Vegetation is scarce, agriculture of any kind non-existent and the only green one can see are a few patches of grass in the sand. Two hours ahead, taking a left from the NH-65, on the road to Didwana, the dry brown landscape suddenly changes colour. Olive trees, around 14,000 of them spread across 30 hectares, dot the desert land. This is the Bakliya farms, one of seven such farms in Rajasthan, result of an Indo-Israeli agricultural venture.

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