Our guest today is Anubha Bhonsle, recipient of the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award, 2009 and the author of the extensively researched book on one of the most ignored state of India titled “Mother, Where is My Country?”. She also received the Chameli Devi Award for Outstanding Woman Media Person in the year 2014 for her body of work. Anubha Bhonsle has been a founding member of CNN-IBN (now CNN-News18). In her role as Executive Editor, she led the channels’ coverage of major news events reporting from the ground and has anchored several flagship news, prime time discussions and documentaries.

In this episode, she shares her story about how she began her career in journalism. She says that she was one of those who didn’t know what they wanted to do and found her calling very late in life. Her first prolonged assignment was to cover Irom Sharmila when she was in Delhi in 2006. She says that she had to go “undercover” for the assignment and spent many days and nights in the hospital where Irom Sharmila was kept confined.

We also talk about her book which is a result of 10 years of hard work and research. The book covers heartbreaking stories not only of Irom Sharmila, but also of all citizens of Manipur. It has reports about the people’s protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, National Highway blockades in the North Eastern states, Human Rights violations, underground groups and political turmoil in the Manipur. She also talks about the reaction and feedback she has received so far from the readers.