Media: Tarun Tejpal

DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images

Media: Tarun Tejpal

Age: N/A
Editor, Tehelka magazine

In the 10th year anniversary of Tehelka, an unlikely magazine that mixes hard-core investigative journalism with pitch-perfect art and cinema reviews and fiction, Tejpal has emerged as a celebrity journalist like no other in India. Best known for a sting operation that revealed rampant bribery in India's defense acquisitions, Tejpal launched Tehelka (which means "sensational" in Hindi) on the back of donations and pre-launch subscriptions from readers who supported investigative journalism. Since then the magazine has exposed government involvement in the 2002 riots in Gujarat, which killed nearly 2,000 Muslims, and has become a benchmark for other Indian magazines. It remains commercially unsuccessful, though, changing formats multiple times in an attempt to gain more readers and advertising. Tejpal is also the author of a bestselling novel, The Alchemy of Desire, which received a glowing review from Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul.