Shoma Chaudhury

Shoma Chaudhury is a journalist, political commentator, and an editor from India. She was born in Darjeeling and grew up in West Bengal amidst the tea gardens. Her father and mother were practicing doctors. Shoma went to St Helen’s Convent, Kurseong, La Martiniere School, Kolkata, and later to Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi. She is the national topper of the ISC Board's twelfth-grade exams and also stood first in her education while pursuing her bachelor and Master degrees from the Delhi University.

After completing studies, Shoma bagged her first job in a media company where she worked on Doordarshan's television series that focused on lives of authors and their books. After working there, she had short stints at India Today, Pioneer newspaper, and Outlook magazine.

In 2000, she resigned from Outlook to join Tarun Tejpal, a fellow journalist, in his endeavor to establish Tehelka. It is an online site that would publish quality content. However, within two years of its establishment, Tehelka got into a controversy with the Government of India.

Shoma fought vigorously for the portal and within two years relaunched it for the public. She became its managing director and would express her views regarding caste, state, politics, terrorism, corruption, Maoist insurgency, and other such social and critical issues.

Shoma also covered populist news like the Aarushi murder that shocked the country, the arrest of Soni Sori and Dr. Binayak Sen, Irom Sharmila, and others. She would not succumb to any pressure and would speak up her mind without fear. Shoma also tried to present the other side of the story to the readers.

Meanwhile, she has interviewed several eminent personalities and wrote columns for newspapers. In 2015, she joined Catch News and resigned from Tehelka. It was a digital platform that tried to integrate new as well as old ways of journalism.

Patrika Group financed it. However, after two years she left Catch News due to some disagreement with the promoters. Shoma was one of the speakers of the 16th World Editors Forum. In fact, she has been a part several such events which occurred in different countries like Singapore, Edinburgh, United States of America, Italy, Spain, France, and others.

She is very critical about the country's media and feels it focuses too much on earning rather than informing people. Shoma was the organizer of Zinda Dilli, a conference for entrepreneurs. She is the winner of the Chameli Devi Award, Sabbiadoro Ernest Hemingway Award, Mumbai Press Club award, and the Ramnath Goenka award.