Chandan Mitra

Mitra was educated at La Martiniere Calcutta, where he was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal in 1971. He was a batchmate of Swapan Dasgupta and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta at La Martiniere, and all three went up to St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, together. At St. Stephen's, Mitra and Shashi Tharoor were to become great friends and Mitra even became campaign manager for Tharoor's successful campaign to become President of the college's student union.[2] Mitra received an MA and M.Phil in History at Delhi University as well. He taught for a short while at Hansraj College.

In 1984, he was awarded a doctorate degree at Oxford University, where he was a member of Magdalen College, for the thesis "Political mobilisation and the nationalism movement in India – a study of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, 1936-1942" written under supervision of the noted Indian historian Tapan Raychaudhuri. Mitra is married to Shobori Ganguly.

Mitra started in journalism as Assistant Editor with The Statesman in Kolkata before he moved to the Times of India in Delhi and then The Sunday Observer; he went on to become Editor of the paper, and later moved to the Hindustan Times as Executive Editor. Mitra left to join The Pioneer as Editor, and eventually bought control of the newspaper from the Thapar family in 1998 when industrialist L. M. Thapar decided to cut his losses.[3]

In July 2013 he made a controversial remark at the renowned economist Amartya Sen,[4] but soon regretted it.[5] He contested the 2014 General Elections on a BJP ticket from Hooghly constituency. He stood third and had to forfeit his deposit.[6]