Sashi Kumar

Sashi Kumar (born 23 February 1952) in Kerala, Sashi Kumar spent his school years in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, the bulk of it in Madras. He completed his postgraduation in history from Madras Christian College in 1975.

In the late 1970s he was among the earliest Newscasters in English on Doordarshan, India’s national TV network and, over the next decade, became a familiar face in TV households in India as news and current affairs anchor, film critic and producer and director of topical features on television.

Among the weekly programmes he authored and presented were Money Matters, the first independent programme on the economy on Indian television; Tana Bana, a cultural feature; and Jan Manch, an interactive forum with Ministers in the government and a cross section of society.

He has been the principal anchor of international conventions like the Commonwealth Heads of State meet in Bangalore, The Nonaligned summit in Delhi and the International Film Festivals of India for several years.

He also produced a number of special features on the issues affecting South Asia covering Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Maldives. Most of these docu-features combined descriptive or illustrative visual footage with incisive and analytical interviews with the key players in each situation, and were telecast as multi-part series. He was considered something of television’s Sri Lanka expert during the height of the fractious war on the island and the phase of the IPKF intervention.

Other interests:

He has written and lectured extensively on the media.

He has learnt, and is an avid rasika of, classical Carnatic music

He has experience in the theatre, having acted in and directed a number of plays as part of professional and amateur troupes in Chennai.

He likes reading and swimming and wishes he had more time for both.Sashi Kumar is married to Radhika, publisher-editor of Tulika Publishers who publish books for children. They have two sons. The elder son Tushar is married to Nisha and they, in turn, have two sons, Vihaan and Aayush. The younger son, Tuhin, is married to Pooja and they have two daughters, Kaira and Anika.