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About Rajiv Shah

A former political editor of the Times of India, Rajiv covered the state government between late 1997 and early 2013 as the daily's representative in the Gujarat capital, Gandhinagar. Working in formal journalism since 1979, he adheres to the George Orwell quote: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations."
Before joining the Times of India as an assistant editor in 1993, he served as a special correspondent in Moscow. There, he covered Mikhail Gorbachev's rise and fall between 1986 and 1993 for the Delhi-based semi-Left paper Patriot and the weekly newsmagazine Link. Though ideologies have long fascinated him, he feels that in the current climate, they are losing ground. As for what is filling that space, he remarks, "I'm a newsperson. How do I know?"
As a blogger, Rajiv was associated with TOI's online blogging site, where his column was titled True Lies. His stories and blogs (archived here) represented a modest attempt to reveal impressions of everyday life and the establishment's efforts to influence it.
Having had close access to the political and bureaucratic elite in Gandhinagar, Rajiv's Counterview writeups since 2013 aim to discover if ideological considerations truly drive their actions. In a high-voltage political world, do ideologies still matter? Or is objective reality so powerful that ideologies are forced to mold and bend? He seeks to find out—not as an ideologue, but as a blogger and a newsperson.
Currently serving as the editorial coordinator for Counterview, Rajiv’s writings—including blogs, news stories, and articles—can be found at one place, here.

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