Vineet Narain Biography 
Vineet Narain is a prominent Indian journalist who stood as an anti-corruption activist and conservator of heritage. He is also the founder of Independent TV Journalism in India. Jain Hawala scandal in the 1990s caught attention nationwide when he singly fought against Indian judiciary and exposed many leading politicians and bureaucrats. He has been honoured by the life membership of International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy of Film & Television. Currently he writes a syndicated column in over 22 national dailies on a weekly basis.
He came to limelight after he exposed the infamous Jain Hawala scandal in the 1990s, which involved many influential politicians like L. K. Advani, V. C. Shukla, P. Shiv Shankar, Sharad Yadav, Balram Jakhar, and Madan Lal Khurana. This happened for the first time in the history of India when a charge sheet was filed against several Union Cabinet Ministers, Leader of Opposition, Chief Ministers, Governors and senior bureaucrats together. He dared to question the integrity of the highest judiciary of the country with unimpeachable evidences, perhaps for the first time in Indian history. But later CBI was widely criticized and all the accused were acquitted in 1997 and 1998, partly because the hawala records were not used as the main source of evidence.
Vineet Narain was born in UP in 1956 to an academician who served as Vice-Chancellor of two prominent universities in Uttar Pradesh. His mother, a Gandhian social worker and highly spiritual person has influenced him a lot. He completed his higher studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He married a professor Dr. Meeta Narain and had two children. He was drawn towards social services since his younger days and he has been associated with an NGO at the age of 18. He fought against the political interferences in the admission of professional courses in UP.
In the 1980s he anchored Yuv Manch a youth TV show on Doordarshan and later an investigative TV show - Sach Ki Parchain. For his bold exposures of the failure of government policies for public, he had to face protest from higher level and he resigned his job. The series was stopped by Doordarshan. In 1989 he launched the first Hindi-language video news magazine – Kalchakra, giving repeated shocks to the nation with his bold reports. He had to face hurdles from government controlled Censor Board as it was the first year of his show. He also faced financial crisis.
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Updated: January 04, 2016
