Vinod Dua (Journalist)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Vinod Dua

• Before the Indo-Pak partition in 1947, his family lived in Dera Ismail Khan, a city on the tip of South Waziristan, which later came under the influence of the Taliban.

• In 1947, his family moved to Mathura, where they initially lived in a Dharmashala for a year before moving to a two-room tenement, which cost them INR 4/month.

• Upon coming to India, his father began working as a clerk with the Central Bank of India and retired as a branch manager.

• They then moved to Delhi, where his father locked a furnished house in Karol Bagh since those were the finders keepers days. But then they found the lock broken in the evening with a family settled over there.

• So the family rented a one-room place which had got no kitchen and toilet with it. It had a usually chocked stinking open drain, no electricity, no running water, which had to be bought for INR 1/cannister. Just in front was a graveyard, which spoilt the fresh breeze. So, to get some fresh air, his father would take his mother, sister, and brother to India Gate on a bicycle, because he could afford nothing more than that on a monthly salary of INR 75, out which INR 5 got deducted as the provident fund. With and without all these features, the room cost them INR 6 a month. All this while, Vinod wasn’t born.

• His family then shifted to a two-room place in Bhogal which contained a kitchen and had six toilets for twelve houses. It was nothing less than a deluxe place for them, which would cost INR 13 a month. The landlady, a widow, who was shoe lace packer, would cook mutton once in a month at a time when it cost 50 paise a kg and would every time send a Katori to them.

• In his school and college days, Vinod participated in a number of singing and debate events, and he also did theatres until the mid-1980s.

• Sutradhar Puppet of Sri Ram Center for Art and Culture performed two plays that were written by Vinod for the children.

• He was a member of a street theatre group, Theatre Union, which used to create and perform plays against social issues like Dowry.

• In November 1974, Vinod made his first Television appearance in Yuva Manch, a Hindi language youth program that was aired on Doordarshan (formerly called Delhi television).

• Yuv Jan, a youth show for the youth of Raipur, Muzaffarpur, and Jaipur for Satellite Instructional Telecast Experiment (SITE), was anchored by Vinod in 1975.

• The same year, he began anchoring ‘Jawan Tarang,’ a program for youth that was telecast on the newly commissioned Amritsar TV. He continued his job until 1980.

• In 1981, he started anchoring ‘Aap Ke Liye,’ a Sunday morning family magazine, which he kept doing until 1984.

• Vinod, along with Prannoy Roy, co-anchored the election analysis on Doordarshan in 1984. This gave his career a boost, as it bagged him the chance to anchor an election analysis program for several other television channels.

• He anchored ‘Janvani’ (People’s Voice), a show where common people had got the opportunity to directly question the ministers, in 1985. This show was the first of its kind.

• Vinod joined TV Today, a venture of India Today Group, as its chief producer in 1987.

• To produce the shows based on current affairs, budget analysis, and documentary films, he launched his production company ‘The Communication Group,’ in 1988.

• Vinod anchored the show ‘Chakravyuha,’ the channel Zee TV, in 1992.

• Between 1992 and 1996, he was the producer of a weekly current affairs magazine, ‘Parakh,’ which was telecast on Doordarshan.

• In 1996, he became the first electronic media journalist to be bestowed with the esteemed BD Goenka Award for excellence in the field of journalism.
• Vinod was an anchor for the show ‘Tasveer-e-Hind,’ which was aired on Doordarshan’s cerebral channel, DD3 Media. He served as an anchor for the channel between 1997 and 1998.

• In March 1998, Vinod anchored the Sony Entertainment Channel’s show, ‘Chunav Chunauti.’

• He was linked to the Sahara TV from the year 2000 to 2003, for which he used to anchor ‘Pratidin and Parakh.’

• Vinod used to host the NDTV India’s program, ‘Zaika India Ka,’ for which he travelled across the cities; stopped by the highways, roads; tasted several dishes from the roadside dhabas.

• The Government of India conferred on him Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award, in 2008.

• In 2016, ITM University, Gwalior awarded him the D. Litt. “Honoris Causa” (an honorary degree in Doctor of Letters), which, in some countries, is considered beyond the Ph.D. It is given as an honorary degree when awarded without the awardee’s application.

• He started anchoring ‘Jan Gan Man Ki Baat’ for The Wire Hindi. The show was a 10-minute current affairs program that telecast on The Wire’s website where he often took a critical of the government, but with the required facts and numbers.

• For his lifetime achievement in the field of journalism, Mumbai Press Club awarded him the RedInk Award, in June 2017, which was presented to Vinod by Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra.