Introduction

Professor Nalin Mehta is Dean, School of Modern Media and Advisor, Global University Systems. He was previously the Executive Editor of Times of India (Online); Consulting Editor of Times of India; Managing Editor of India Today (English); and senior communications specialist with the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Professor Mehta is one of India’s leading scholars on media and politics. Alongside his executive leadership position roles in major digital, print and television news companies, he is an award-winning social scientist, journalist and author. He has previously held research fellowships at the National University of Singapore; Australian National University, Canberra; La Trobe University, Melbourne; and International Olympics Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore; Associate Professor of Sociology at Shiv Nadar University; and Senior Research Fellow at the India Development Foundation. As a media expert, he has served as a Governing Board member of the University Grants Commission Consortium for Educational Communication, an inter-university institution that coordinates the work of 22 Indian university centres on education through communication technologies.

Professor Mehta is the author of five best-selling and critically acclaimed books, including India On Television (winner of the Asian Publishing Award for Best Book on Asian Media, 2009); and Behind a Billion Screens (Shortlisted as Business Book of the Year, Tata Literary Live, 2015). His latest co-authored book, Dreams of a Billion: India and the Olympic Games (HarperCollins, 2020) with Boria Majumdar, is a national bestseller and has been shortlisted for the Ekamra Sports Book of the Year Award. Additionally, he was the founding Co-Director of the Times Lit Fest Delhi (2015-2018) and a founding editor of the international peer-reviewed journal, South Asian History and Culture, as well as the Routledge South Asian History and Culture book series.

A DFID-Commonwealth scholar, Professor Mehta has a PhD in Politics from La Trobe University, Melbourne; MA in International Relations, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom; and a BA Journalism (Honours) from University of Delhi.

Areas of Interest and Expertise

• Digital Media: Economy, Public Policy and Politics
• Digital Strategy, Content and Business Models
• Indian Media and Society
• Indian Politics and Modern History
• International Politics of Technology