Russi Karanjia Biography 
Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia, shortly called Russi Karanjia was a noted investigative journalist and editor. He is better known as the founder of Blitz, a weekly tabloid with focus on investigative journalism. Started in 1941, he ran the magazine successfully for 4 decades. He is the younger brother of B. K. Karanjia, renowned film journalist, author, editor and former chairman of National Films Development Corporation who has served as the editor of Filmfare Magazine for 18 years and Screen Magazine for 10 years. Russi died five years prior to his elder brother in 2008. Russi Karanjia’s daughter Rita Mehta is a co-founder of Cine Blitz magazine and served as its first Editor-in-chief.
Karanjia was born and brought up in a Parsi family in Quetta, now in Pakistan. Following Partition in 1947, his family shifted to Mumbai. He started writing while at college and started his career as a journalist in the 1930s. He worked as an assistant editor at The Times of India during those days. In 1941 he left Times of India to start his own investigative weekly tabloid – Blitz. He also served as a war correspondent during World War II. He ran Blitz successfully for 4 decades till it was closed in the mid-1990s. Many great personalities like P. Sainath and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas have been associated with this magazine. The magazine was friendly to left parties and attacked Congress.
Decision to start a weekly tabloid was taken by three patriotic journalists B. V. Nadkarni, Benjamin Horniman and Karanjia over a cup of tea at a restaurant in Mumbai. The first issue of Blitz was published on 1 February 1941. Years later Karanjia died on a February 1st! A great devotee of Sai Baba, he wrote one book on yoga.
Published: N/A
Updated: November 11, 2015
