A renowned business journalist and Author, Sucheta Dalal has a remarkable career to take inspiration from. Being the person who exposed several scams wasn’t an easy task. We all are aware of the series “Scam of 1992- The Harshad Mehta story” and, are often seen sympathizing with Harshad Mehta. But what is the real story of the journalist who exposed the scam?
Born in 1962, Sucheta belongs to a family with no business background. Her parent were Doctors. She studied her graduation in Math and statistics from Karnataka college, Dharwad, and later continued with LLB and LLM from Bombay university. Getting comfortable with numbers was equally difficult for her. She got into details on the job. She was passionate about being a Business Journalist. She started working at Fortune and soon got the opportunity to work at the Business standard. It was an honor for her to work there.
Business journalism was looked down upon back then. People would ask her questions – “Aren’t you ashamed to be a business journalist?”. But this didn’t stop Sucheta. Working for Business Standards was no fun either. She had a tough boss and Senior experienced colleagues. Puff stories are not something they looked for. The interesting part was she was glad to have such an experience as it has helped her be who she is today.
Harshad Mehta’s story was her big break. She not only made enemies but witnessed the nastiness of PR agencies. “Present data, PR agencies do 80% of the job a journalist should be doing. It wasn’t like this back then”, she said in an interview with mask media.
The series that was solely made for entertainment purposes has made people sympathize with Harshad Mehta and question Sucheta’s career. On the job, Sucheta always had job pressure to tackle at the same time overcome the badmouthing and maligning that came from PR agencies. She worked not only on the Harshad Mehta scam but also the Enron scam, the Industrial Development Bank of India scam, the Ketan Parekh scam in 2001.
In 2008, she resigned from the Indian Express overnight due to work pressure. It marked the Journey on a new beginning. Debashish Basu, her spouse played the role of a supportive husband. They together started Moneylife Foundation, a non-governmental organization. She also wrote for Moneylife magazine. They currently have a YouTube channel where they discuss and conduct conferences to develop the financial literacy of India. Besides the up and down of her life, she became an author. She wrote 2 books namely, “the scam: who won, who lost, who got away” (1993) and “A.D. Shroff: Titan of Finance and Free Enterprise” (2000).
Sucheta received 3 awards for her stunning career. These were the Padma Shri Award, the Chameli Devi Award instituted by the Media Foundation, and Femina’s Woman of Substance Award for her zealous work in journalism.
Sucheta has not only been a hard-working but brave journalist. A profession that gives no job security and brings constant threat to life never scared her. she confidently faced the world and, has been successful at it. Her awards speak all for her. All budding journalists shall make sure to follow their careers and take the inspiration that is needed.
: By – Neha Pandey
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