Panelists:

- Vijay Srinivas Journalist, The Federal (Moderator)

- S Srinivasan Editor-in-chief, The Federal

- Vaishna Roy Editor-in-chief, Frontline

- Prashant Panjiar Independent Photojournalist

- Z Shabbir Ahmed Senior News-editor, The News Minute

Vijay Srinivas is currently with The Federal, where he covers business and economy. He started his career with the India Today Group in Delhi and has since worked at Thomson Reuters in Bengaluru, Mint, and ET NOW in Mumbai. With over seven years of experience, Vijay has produced prime-time programs and interviewed prominent business leaders and economists, including Sandip Patel from IBM, Daisy Chittilapally from Cisco, Sridhar Vembu from Zoho, and former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, among others. In addition to his reporting, he leads The Federal's social media team and hosts the weekly YouTube show Talking Sense alongside his Editor-in-Chief, S. Srinivasan.

S. Srinivasan is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federal and the founding editor of Puthiya Thalaimurai, Tamil Nadu's leading news channel. With four decades of experience across print, broadcast, and digital media, he has held top editorial leadership roles at India’s most prominent media organizations, including The India Today Group and HT Media Group. A seasoned journalist and newsroom pioneer, Srinivasan is an expert at devising end-to-end strategies for launch, editorial operations, and the integration of technology in media.

Vaishna Roy, a journalist with 30-plus years of experience, is the editor-in-chief of Frontline, the fortnightly news magazine from The Hindu group. Earlier, she used to edit Sunday Magazine for The Hindu newspaper. She was the author of a popular fortnightly column titled Speech Melba that was a feminist take on culture, politics, and society, besides regularly writing features, interviews, book reviews, and op-eds. She believes, like Faiz wrote, in the words: "Bol ke lab azaad hain tere."  

Prashant Panjiar is a self-taught photographer. He has worked as a photojournalist and editor in mainstream media at Patriot newspaper (1984-1986), India Today (1986-1995) and the Outlook Group of Publications (1995-2001). Since 2001 Panjiar has been working independently as a photographer specialising in reportage, editorial and documentary photography, a photo editor and curator.

As an independent photojournalist, Panjiar has worked on stories for leading international and national publications such as Time Magazine, Focus, New York Times, amongst others. As a documentary photographer he works on issues of health, education and livelihood across Asia and Africa for international non-profit organisations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, American India Foundation, UNFPA, IPPF & HIV-AIDS Alliance. 

Panjiar has led the curatorial team of all 3 editions of the Delhi Photo Festival of which he is the co-founder and co-Creative Director. He is also responsible for the publication of the Nazar Photography Monographs series for Nazar Foundation of which he is the co-founder and Managing Trustee.

In 2014 as Creative Director he curated, and helped conceive the first edition of Sensorium a festival of Arts, Literature & Ideas for Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts. In 2015 he curated a permanent collection of contemporary photography for the new corporate building of Star TV India in Mumbai. He was the photography curator for the first two editions of the Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, in 2016 and 2017. He was the project curator for Kanu’s Gandhi, the third title in the Nazar Photography Monographs series, and of the resulting exhibition that has been on tour since 2015. His latest initiative is the multi-disciplinary Goa Open Arts Festival and the Goa Open Arts Catalyst Grant that he co-founded and launched in 2020.

Panjiar has served on the jury of the World Press Photo Awards, the China International Press Photo Competition, Indian Express Press Photo Awards and the National Foundation of India’s annual photography fellowship.

Being one of India’s leading photo-practitioners, Panjiar is actively involved in mentoring younger photographers.

Shabbir Ahmed works with The News Minute, a leading English news portal that covers South India, as Senior News Editor. Prior to joining The News Minute, Shabbir Ahmed was heading the  Tamil Nadu Bureau of Times Now. He reports from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu on governance, politics, crime and other socio- political issues. Shabbir Ahmed completed his graduation in Commerce in New College and also has a Diploma in Journalism from Madras University, Chennai.

He has 20 years of experience in print, television and digital media. He has extensively reported on governance and exposed several scams linked to high profile politicians in the State of Tamil Nadu. He has also reported extensively on General and Assembly elections, caste issues and Sri Lankan Tamils refugee crisis. He was part of the ‘End VVIP Racism’ campaign launched by his channel Times Now which exposed the benefits and privilege enjoyed by powerful politicians and bureaucrats depriving the common man of their rights. Recently, he exposed the Chennai police’s attempt to cover up the custodial death of Vignesh and because of his reports the case was transferred to CBCID and 6 police men have been arrested. 

Shabbir Ahmed is also a Chevening fellow. The fellowship was sponsored by Britain Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and completed his course in University of Westminster in United Kingdom. 

Shabbir Ahmed currently hosts a show called ‘Yea Endra Kelvi With Shabbir Ahmed’ for The News Minute’s newly launched YouTube channel.

CATCH THE CONVERSATION HERE!