FactChecker.in is India’s first dedicated Fact Check initiative. Since early 2013, we have been scrutinizing and researching for veracity and context, statements made by individuals in public life. As well as picking up on issues where we feel there is a strong need to examine data that is in public domain. In February 2014, we decided to spin it off into a separate website.
FactChecker.in is an initiative of The Spending & Policy Research Foundation which also runs www.indiaspend.org, India’s first data journalism initiative. We are located in Lower Parel in Mumbai and are registered as a Charitable Trust with the Charity Commissioner, Mumbai.
Govindraj Ethiraj, Founder: He is a television & print journalist and also Founder of Boom News, a next generation television news initiative. He also anchors seasonal shows on Indian news television – the current one being the weekly `Policy Watch’ on public service broadcaster Rajya Sabha or RS TV. And most recent being BottomLine on Headlines Today – and writes for newspapers like Business Standard.
Previously, he was Founder-Editor in Chief of Bloomberg TV India, a 24-hours business news service launched out of Mumbai in 2008 and a partnership between Bloomberg LLP and the UTV Group in India. Prior to setting up Bloomberg TV India, he worked with Business Standard newspaper as Editor (New Media) with a specific mandate of integrating the newspaper’s news operations with its digital or web platform. He also spent around five years each with CNBC-TV18 & The Economic Times. He is a Fellow of The Aspen Institute, Colorado & a winner of the BMW Foundation Responsible Leadership Awards for 2014.
Email: govindraj@indiaspend.org
Samar Halarnkar, Editor: A journalist for 24 years working at publications like the Indian Express and India Today. His last assignment was Managing Editor of Hindustan Times, where he revamped the nationwide flow of news to focus on issues of public interest and ran groundbreaking investigations into poverty related multibillion-dollar subsidy programmes and administrative reform.
He continues as a columnist with Hindustan Times and Mint, writing on social and economic issues, science and technology. Most recently, he was a fellow with the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, where he drew up a blueprint for mobile-phone-based, public-interest journalism model for India. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
Halarnkar is the author of two books, “Nirvana under the rain tree”, an early chronicle of India’s Internet Revolution, and “A married man’s guide to creative cooking (and other dubious adventures)”, his experiments with cooking, which flowed out of a popular cooking column that he continues to write. He is married with a four-year-old daughter and lives in Bangalore.
Email: samar@indiaspend.org
Jyothi Shankaran, Associate Editor: His last role was as Senior Editor with the business news channel Bloomberg TV India. He also worked as News Editor at business-standard.com, the online version of the business newspaper Business Standard. Jyothi graduated as a chemical engineer from Regional Engineering College, Srinagar.
Email: jyothi@indiaspend.org
Prachi Salve, Policy Analyst/Writer: Has two masters degrees. The first one was in Economics from Mumbai University and the second one was in Development Studies from the University of Sussex, UK. Prachi has done her Bachelors in Economics from St Xaviers College in Mumbai. She has been a research assistant at Institute of Development Studies (UK) and the Young Foundation (UK). Prachi has also worked for Greenpeace India in the fund raising division.
Email: prachi@indiaspend.org
Saumya Tewari, Policy Analyst/Writer: Saumya has done her Masters in Political Science from the University of Lucknow (2008) and has worked as faculty in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Kumaun University in Nainital during 2010-2011. She holds a PG Diploma in Governance, Democratisation and Public Policy from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands (2012) and is pursuing a PhD in Development Studies from the Tata Institue of Social Sciences, Mumbai
Email: saumya@indiaspend.org
Chaitanya Mallapur, Policy Analyst/Research Writer: Is a 3rd Rank in Master of Arts (Hons) in Politics, University of Mumbai (2014). Chaitanya has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Wilson College, Mumbai (2012). He represented University of Mumbai in the 43rd parliamentary course at Vidhan Bhavan, Nagpur in December 2013. His broad areas of interest are International Relations, Defence and Strategic studies with a specific interest in Foreign Policy, International Trade, Maritime Security and Internal Security.
Email: chaitanya@indiaspend.org
Abheet Singh Sethi, Policy analyst/Research Writer: Abheet has a Masters degree in Geopolitics and International Relations from Manipal University, where he specialised in foreign policy, national security, propaganda and public diplomacy . He has completed his Bachelors in Mass Media with a Journalism major from Mumbai University. In his free time, Abheet likes to eat chocolates, listen to Sufi folk music and binge watch Doctor Who.
Email: abheet@indiaspend.org
Shaibaz Mulla, Senior Software Developer – Technology & Research: He has over four years of experience in the Web Technology space. His last role was as Web Developer with Kronosis Hyper Technologies where he worked on major stages of Web Application Development, which included developing and designing algorithms and architectures. He was also a co-creator of vaultoncloud.com, a 256 bit encrypted data storage system. He has completed his Bachelor of Computer Application and Diploma in Computer Engineering.
Email: shaibaz@indiaspend.org
Megha Patil, Trainee Web Developer: Megha has completed her B.E. Computer Engineering in 2014 from Shivajirao S. Jondhale College Of Engineering in Mumbai. She was earlier a trainee at a consultancy firm in Mumbai where she contributed to live projects and secured certifications in Web Development and Ethical hacking.
Email: megha@indiaspend.org
CONTRIBUTORS:
Amit Bhandari is a media, research and finance professional with over 10 years of experience. He has worked with Economic Times, Deccan Chronicle, ET Now and CLSA in the past. He holds a B-Tech from IT-BHU (2001) and a MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad (2003).
Email: amitbhandari1979@gmail.com