Career
Teesta graduated with a degree in Philosophy from Bombay University in 1983 and started work as a journalist. She reported for the Mumbai editions of The Daily (India) and The Indian Express newspapers, and then for Business India magazine. In 1993, appalled by the communal violence during the Bombay Riots, she and her husband quit their regular jobs to start a monthly magazine Communalism Combat. They also took up civil rights' activism in a major way at this time.
The Gujarat riots of 2002, which occurred in Teesta's home state, were a turning point in her career. She accused the government of Gujarat of being collusive in the rioting and made serious personal allegations of complicity against the state's chief minister, Narendra Modi. Her sheer physical pugnaciousness and colourful, animated articulation turned her into a leading light of the forces ranged against the state government. The campaign succeeded in creating much trouble for and inflicting many humiliations upon the state government, including the transfer of riot-related court cases to courts outside the state of Gujarat. However, convictions have been sparse and the legal proceedings have thrown up numerous controversies, described below, which implicate Teesta herself for manufacturing evidence and influencing witnesses.
Teesta was awarded the Padma Shri in 2007 by the central government ruled by the INC party, a rival to Modi's BJP. The Padma Shri citation stated that the award had been given to her for "Public Affairs in Maharashtra".
Read more about this topic: Teesta Setalvad
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