Tunku Varadarajan
Photo of Tunku Varadarajan, dressed in blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, with red decorative necktie. He's sporting a handlebar mustache.
Tunku Varadarajan in 1997
Born
Patanjali Varadarajan

August 28, 1962
Delhi, India
Citizenshipborn and raised in India; naturalised British
Alma materTrinity College, Oxford
Occupation(s)Writer, journalist, teacher
Known forEssays, interviews, classical liberalism views
SpouseAmy Finnerty
Children3
Parents
RelativesSiddharth Varadarajan (brother)

Tunku Varadarajan /ˈtʊŋkuː ˌvɑːrədəˈrɑːdʒən/ (born Patanjali Varadarajan[2] in 1962) is a India-born naturalised British writer and journalist, formerly editor of Newsweek Global and Newsweek International.[3] He is the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Research Fellow in Journalism at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a contributing editor at Politico Europe.

Early life and education

Tunku Varadarajan was born in Delhi, India. His earliest years were spent in New York, where he attended The Town School.[4] He later attended Mayo College in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India with his brother Siddharth Varadarajan, as well as Dulwich College, London. After high school, he attended Trinity College, Oxford University from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in law in 1984.[5]

Career

After six years as a lecturer in law, Tunku Varadarajan left Oxford in 1993 to join The Times as a leader (editorial) writer under the editor, Peter Stothard. He specialized in international affairs, law, society, and culture. In 1996, he moved to Spain as the newspaper's Madrid bureau chief. In 1997, he was named the newspaper's New York City bureau chief.

In 2000, Varadarajan joined the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, under its editor, Robert L. Bartley. He worked there as a senior editorial writer, deputy editorial features editor, chief television and media critics, and, for five years, as the paper's editorial features ("op-ed") editor (a post to which he was appointed by the paper's editorial page editor, Paul A. Gigot.) He also wrote a column, "Citizen of the World," for which he received an award from South Asian Journalists Association in 2002. The citation read, "for a year's worth of his consistently engaging and controversial opinion pieces about South Asia (and other global topics) in the newspaper and on its sister site, OpinionJournal.com."[6]

In 2009, Varadarajan left Forbes for The Daily Beast, where he was appointed writer-at-large, tasked with writing opinion columns on politics, foreign affairs, and American culture. When Newsweek merged with The Daily Beast in December 2010, Varadarajan was named editor of Newsweek International by editor-in-chief Tina Brown. In December 2012, he became the first editor of Newsweek Global, the all-digital publication that took the place of the magazine's print edition. He resigned from that job in late April 2013.

Varadarajan has been associated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University for several years, most recently as the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Research Fellow in Journalism. He is the editor of Defining Ideas, a Hoover Institution publication.[7]

Controversies

In November 2009, subsequent to the Fort Hood shooting, Forbes.com published an article by Varadarajan titled "Going Muslim", a play on the colloquial American phrase "Going Postal". The opinion essay prompted some controversy, including political objections from some students at New York University, where he was a clinical professor, as well as in the media.[8][9] NYU President John Sexton condemned the remarks as offensive.[10] In the article "Is Your Professor an Islamophobe?", Columbia University epidemiologist and HuffPost contributor, Abdul El-Sayed, quoted Varadarajan's article, among others, when he discussed phenomenon of "a growing number of academics using (their) intellectual identity to promote intolerance and xenophobia against Islam and Muslims".[11]

Personal life

A British citizen, Varadarajan lives in Brooklyn, New York, United States with his wife Amy Finnerty and their three children.[12] He is a member of the Century Association in New York, and is on the Media Advisory Committee of AmeriCares.

References

  1. ↑ Dave, Palesh, "Making News - Palesh Dave profiles brothers Tunku and Siddharth Varadarajan", The India Quarterly (July–September 2013)
  2. ↑ "Second editor of Indian origin for 'Newsweek'". INDIAN JOURNALISM REVIEW. 10 December 2010.
  3. ↑ Adams, Russell (7 December 2010). "Tina Brown Taps Talent for Newsweek".
  4. ↑ "N-8 NYC Coed Day School :: Town School". www.thetownschool.org.
  5. ↑ "NYU Stern - Tunku Varadarajan - Clinical Professor of Business". 22 November 2009. Archived from the original on 22 November 2009.
  6. ↑ "A Trophy for Tunku". Wall Street Journal. 7 June 2002. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
  7. ↑ "Defining Ideas".
  8. ↑ "Students respond to professor's column - nyunews.com". 2 January 2010. Archived from the original on 2 January 2010.
  9. ↑ "Faith and Reason: A conversation about religion, spirituality and ethics". Content.usatoday.com. Retrieved 11 May 2018.
  10. ↑ "Hey NYU, A Shooting Spree Isn't "Going Muslim" -UPDATED".
  11. ↑ El-Sayed, Abdulrahman; Professor, ContributorAssistant; University, Columbia (4 April 2010). "Is Your Professor an Islamophobe?". HuffPost. Retrieved 30 May 2019. {{cite web}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
  12. ↑ "Tina Brown Names Tunku Varadarajan Editor of International Editions | the New York Observer". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on 14 January 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2011.
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