Vartika Nanda's (born April 17) domain expertise lies in journalism - its teaching, practice and training. With a PhD degree by her side in Journalism (on the coverage of rape by print media), she is Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism in Lady Shri Ram College of Delhi University, Delhi ( IndiaLady Shri Ram College of Delhi University in India and has a PhD in journalism. Nanda has also taught TV journalism for three years at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication as Associate Professor in the past.
Nanda has held various journalistic assignments in Zee News,NDTV, Lok Sabha TV and Sahara India Media. She sneaked into print journalism while her engagement as Associate Editor with a quarterly, Communication Today which she still continues. As a regular columnist she contributed for over two years to The Pioneer and Hindi Outlook till 2007. She continues contributing columns to three leading national dailies as freelancer.
Nanda has been appointed on the expert committee on Prasar Bharti constituted in 2013 by the Government of India under the chairmanship of Sam Pitroda. She is also an Honorary Media Advisor to Delhi Police.
On training front, she has held media training sessions for Induction officers at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. She has held several training programmes for stingers and budding journalists in TV news medium in Delhi and also held a number of workshops in Delhi, Jaipur, Bhopal, Ranchi, Nainital and Patna. Her training workshops on anchoring and reporting as well as consultancy to students for their entrance tests to premier media teaching institutes like IIMC, JAMIA, ASJ etc. are increasingly becoming popular. She is also one of the trainer training school teachers on teaching media. This is organized by CIET, NCERT to popularize media literacy.
Nanda is the recipient of the Dr. Radhakrishnan Memorial National Media Award for the year 2012. She also received Rituraj Parmpara Samman for the collection of poetry – Thee. Hoon.. Rahungi… . In the year 2005, she was conferred the Bharatendu Harishchandra Award . Bharatendu Harishchandra Awards are given by India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting since 1983 to promote original writings in Hindi on journalism and mass communications. Nanda has been given the award for her book, Television aur Apraadh Patrkarita. In 2007, she received the Sudha Patrakarita Samman for outstanding writing on media issues. Vartika Nanda also has contributed to the book, Making News. The book published by Oxford University Press contains a series of articles on the state of media in India and the various genres of journalism. Nanda’s article in the book is titled as, Television Crime Reporting in India.
As a member of the NCERT text book committee on media studies, she co-authored a chapter on Understanding Media for class XI in the year 2010.
Nanda had her initial education in Punjab. In her school days, she authored a compilation of poems titled, Madhur Dastak (1989). She won many laurels at the school and college level. Notable among them being First Prize in Story Competition conducted by Dainik Tribune and Himachal Pradesh Government and also a Special Prize in Story Competition held by Language Department, Punjabi University, Patiala in 1991-92. In the year 1990, she received the Prem Chand Silver Medal Award by Punjab University. She was also the youngest anchor for DD Jalandhar for almost a decade.
Nanda worked with Zee for one and a half year (1994–1996) and then joined an organization that later become the leading news channel in the country - NDTV. She worked with NDTV for 8 years and before she quit, she was the Chief of Crime Bureau. She had become a house hold name and was commonly known as Prannoy Roy’s crime reporter. After this she taught at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication for three years - as Associate Professor, Television Journalism. In 2004, she organized a Specialized Media Course for Civil Service Officers' at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, Mussoorie. The academy trains Civil Servants. She also organized a Media Training Workshop for Coast Guard Officers' at IIMC, New Delhi. The same year, she conducted a specialized course on Handling Media in Crisis for Senior Railway Officers' at IIMC, Dhenkanal, Orissa.
In 2006, she joined the world’s first television channel to be run by the Parliament of a country, Lok Sabha TV as the Executive Producer. She played an instrumental role in setting up and running the channel. She, in addition to her responsibilities as an Executive Producer, used to anchor one of the most popular programmes of Lok Sabha TV, Sansad Se Sadak Tak. In March 2008, she joined Sahara India Media as Programming Head of all the news channels of Sahara India Media, including 'Samay', a 24-hr national news channel which broadcasts in over 66 countries.
Nanda travelled to Canada in 2012 as a media analyst. She also travelled to UK in 2011Germany in 2007 as a delegate of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (India). The objective was to promote Indo-German Strategic Partnership and Media Education. She was also part of the Young Leaders Forum (India) to explore possibilities of strategic partnership between EU-India and visited Brussels (Belgium) in 2008 as a part of this program. She also holds a certificate in Change Management conducted by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association in 2008.
Published Books
• Thee. Hoon..Rahungi : ( First book of collection of poems in India revolving around the issue of crime against women) : Published by Rajkamal Prakashan : 2011 • Marjaanee : ( Compilation of poetry) : Published by Rajkamal Prakashan : 2011 • Television aur Crime Reporting : Published by Rajkamal Prakashan : 2010 • Co- authored a book titled Media aur Jansamvad : Published by Samayik Prakashan : 2009. • Television aur Crime Reporting : Published by IIMC : 2006 • Madhur Dastak : (Compilation of poetry in Hindi) : 1989
Criticism
Nanda's book of poems, "Marjaani" was recalled from the book stores owing to dispute over the title of the same. Krishna Sobti, another author, contested that the title could not be used as she had written a novel with the similar title in the 50s. Krishna Sobti's novel was titled, "Mitru Marjaani"