FounderIndiaSpend
Govindraj Ethiraj, Founder, BOOM & IndiaSpend
Govindraj Ethiraj is a television and print journalist who has reported and written on Indian business for over 25 years. He is a media executive and entrepreneur whose ventures are safeguarding the transparency, accuracy, and integrity of the internet in general & news in specific in India and world-wide.
His ventures were started with the vision of improving the quality of public discourse and playing a transformative role in enforcing accountability and better governance.
Most recently, he founded BOOM (www.boomlive.in), a fake news busting initiative that tracks and debunks viral hoaxes in real time, often time preventing community violence by stopping rumours that stir up ethnic hatred. He also founded the award-winning IndiaSpend (indiaspend.org), a public interest journalism outfit which uses data to write and syndicate stories in areas like health, education and environment, and FactChecker (factchecker.in)which monitors people and institutions in public life.
BOOM and FactChecker were India’s first verified members of the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), a part of the Poynter Institute.
The award-winning IndiaSpend is a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and also boasts some of the highest, continued citations for its data work in leading academic journals world over.
Govindraj was named a 2018 McNulty Prize Laureate in recognition for his leadership with BOOM, IndiaSpend, and FactChecker.
Govindraj also anchors seasonal shows on Indian news television – including presently on networks like BloombergQuint.
Previously, he was Founder-Editor in Chief of Bloomberg TV India, a 24-hours business news service launched out of Mumbai in 2008. Prior to setting up Bloomberg TV, he worked with Business Standard newspaper as Editor (New Media), and before that, Govindraj spent five years with television channel CNBC-TV18 where he actively drove most of the channels’ programming growth and expansion. Prior to television, he worked in print in The Economic Times and leading business magazines. He is a Fellow of the Inaugural Class of Ananta Aspen’s India Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and a winner of the 2014 BMW Responsible Leaders Awards.