MJ Akbar

MJ Akbar

MJ Akbar is one of India’s most distinguished editors and authors. He has written several bestselling books on life and politics in modern India that have achieved international acclaim.

Akbar started his career with The Times of India in 1971 as a trainee. In 1976, he moved to Calcutta to join the Ananda Bazar Patrika Group as the editor of India’s first genuine political weekly “Sunday”. In 1982, after the success of Sunday, he launched the newspaper “The Telegraph”. He was the editor-in-chief of The Deccan Chronicle and. the founder and former editor-in-chief and managing director of “The Asian Age”. He is the Chairman of the fortnightly newsmagazine “Covert”. His most recent launch is the Sunday Guardian, Delhi’s first Sunday newspaper.

As an author, his first book “India: The Siege Within, Challenges to a Nation’s Unity” was published by Penguin in 1984. Over the years, he has written several non-fiction books, including a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru titled “Nehru: The Making of India”. His next book, “Kashmir: Behind the Vale” told the story of India’s most troublesome and indeed deeply saddening crisis. He has also authored “The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity”, a cohesive history of jihad which won world wide applause. Akbar’s recently published book is “Blood Brothers”, a family saga of three generations of a Muslim family and how they deal with the fluctuating contours of Hindu-Muslim relations.