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Rohit Sardana was an Indian anchor and media personality. He had hosted Taal Thok Ke, a debate programme which discusses contemporary issues in India on Zee News. He left Zee News to join Aaj Tak in 2017, and hosted the debate show Dangal. He is a recipient of the 2018 Ganesh Vidyarthi Puraskar Award.
Early life and education
Sardana has a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. From 2000 to 2002, Sardana completed his academic work to earn a post-graduate degree in mass communication from Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology.
Career
From March 2002 to July 2003, Sardana worked as a copy-editor. As a trainee copy-editor, Sardana was exposed to the technicalities of anchoring, copywriting, editing, production and post-production work. Along with learning these skills, Sardana studied the functioning of a 24-hour news channel. Sardana worked as an assistant producer at Sahara Samay from 2003 to 2004.
Since 2004, Sardana was with Zee News in the capacity of an executive editor, anchor, news presenter and host for the network’s Hindi language programmes. He was senior anchor at Aaj Tak. Sardana formerly worked with the ETV Network and Akashvani. He hosted a show called Dangal (translation: Arena) on Aaj Tak which features debate panels. The show has been compared to Radio Rwanda and he has been accused of demonising Muslims, encouraging jingoism and strengthening the Hindu-Muslim binary through his show.
Sardana formerly produced Karmakshetra, among the first Hindi-language news shows whose primary objective was reporting, for an Indian audience, the state of political accountability in India. The show’s question-answer format focused on Members of Parliament (MP) with Sardana variously challenging and questioning the MPs using a detailed report of their work. The final segment of the program culminated with a detailed “report card” on the work of the MPs for their respective constituency in advance of the 2014 Indian general elections.
Awards and recognition
- Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Puraskar by the Government of India (2018).
- ENBA award (2020) and (2021)
Death
He died of a heart attack after testing positive for COVID-19. President Ram Nath Kovind, PM Narendra Modi, Delhi‘s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Rajasthan‘s Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, cricketer Suresh Raina[17], Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh among many expressed their deepest condolences on his untimely demise.