Mayank Chhaya

 

Name, birth date and birth place: Mayank Chhaya, January 6, 1961, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

 

Academic qualifications: Bachelor of Science

 

Career span: 1982-

 

Languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, Marathi, Punjabi (Last three functional)

 

Career highlights: During my career spanning 33 years so far, I have reported extensively on India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United States. I have covered insurgencies, riots, showbiz, economy, crime, politics, culture, environment and anything else that does not fit the classifications. I have overseen operations of daily newspapers and wire services both as chief reporter and editor. Over the last three decades I have built up a sizable network of contacts in the areas of my professional interests which include India, China, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the United States.

 

Since 2000, I have been involved with Online content creation, editing, and presentation on a wide variety of serious news subjects involving the United States, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China and Tibet. Having been a hard-core journalist for nearly 30 years I am used to very tight deadlines that require a quick turnaround time. More information about my background at www.mayankchhaya.net.

 

1982-1985: In my various capacities as a reporter and chief reporter for the Free Press Journal and then as Bombay bureau chief for the Associated Press, I reported on the city’s politics, crime, film world and economy. I broke several local stories, including one that was at the heart of one of the most violent cases of sectarian rioting. Apart from news stories, interviews and features, I wrote at least two daily columns for two leading newspapers.

 

1985: As the AP correspondent in Bombay, I reported on Western India for the wire service’s readers around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1986: I founded what turned out to be India’s first news syndicate with major newspapers as its clients.

 

1986: I joined the New York-based India Abroad as their Bombay chief. In that capacity, I wrote several cover stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1989: I was transferred to New Delhi as the South Asia chief correspondent for India Abroad and India Abroad News Service (now Indo-Asian News Service). Between 1989 and 1998, I was assigned to cover major separatist movements in Kashmir and Punjab apart from reporting all major national stories around India. I was also sent for assignments to Pakistan and Sri Lanka. I was among the first to foreshadow the problems of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan.

 

1992: In the aftermath of the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi I reported extensively on a nation in crisis. After the rise of a new government under Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao I chronicled India’s rise as a future economic power, particularly in the area of telecommunications. Throughout the decade of the 1990s I reported on Kashmir as well as a serious breakdown in communal relations between Hindus and Muslims in the wake of the destruction of a medieval mosque. I turned a writer with a biography of Sam Pitroda, one of the world’s leading information and communication technology gurus who pioneered India’s telecom and information revolution in the 1980s and put the country on the path to its current status as an IT powerhouse. The book was a bestseller in 1992. The 90s decade also saw my reports on India’s struggle with the need to balance economic growth with a fragile ecology. I reported several important stories related to the country’s environmental challenges.

 

1997: I was authorized by the Dalai Lama to write a definitive biography. As part of that project I spent nearly two years interviewing him and researching both in India and the United States. I came to the US in 1998 to take over as the editor of a local paper in California.

 

2000: I founded a media company called Literate World, which ran multilingual literary websites, produced documentaries, produced at least one feature film and published three books. I raised $3 million as the first round of funding for what was planned to be a South Asian media company. We had 30 employees in the US and India. Unfortunately, a huge loss on our first feature film ‘Maya’ did us in and we failed to raise a second, much bigger, round of funding. While Literate World is more or less defunct, its movie offshoot Kundalini Pictures (www.kundalinipictures.com) is very much in the business.

 

2000-2008: I reported on the rise and fall of Silicon Valley apart from handling many assignments in Washington D.C. and New York that took in their sweep US-South Asia perspectives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2007: My biography of the Dalai Lama ‘Man Monk Mystic’ was published by Doubleday/ Random House. Since its publication in the U.S. it has been published around the world in 22 languages to a strong critical and commercial success. It has been very well received internationally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2009-13: I  completed updating the Dalai Lama biography with five new chapters. I  also completed a book on the Indian city of Ahmedabad to mark 600 years of its founding. I have three more books in the pipeline, including one about nanotechnology. Additionally, I also finished scripting my first full-length feature film based on a story that I wrote three years ago. That film is awaiting funding.

 

I am also a widely published commentator on South Asia, Tibet-China and US-India-Pakistan affairs commentator for the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), India’s largest independent wire. Additionally, I write two weekly columns in Hindi and Gujarati languages apart from my widely read blog in English.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2014-2015: I now run a multimedia content creation company called Global Content LLC in Chicago. Its mandate is to create original content across print, online, television and cinema media. As part of that, I am involved in four books, two websites, two documentaries and two feature films apart from other incidental content.

 

For more about Chhaya on the net visit here.