Reuters hires tech reporter, investigative reporter in India

Euan Rocha, the Mumbai bureau chief for Reuters, sent out the following announcement:

I am pleased to announce that Sankalp Phartiyal will be joining the Mumbai bureau as tech, media, telecom correspondent on our company news team. Sankalp joined the Reuters Delhi bureau in 2015, reporting on the commodity patch, while tracking the crucial monsoon rains in Asia’s third-largest economy. In just a few months, he carved out a space for himself in the commodities team. He has covered stories ranging from a major Bangladesh power deal, to plans for India’s first diamond mine auction and New Delhi’s trade war with China on steel dumping. He also won the Asia Speed Demon award by beating the competition to break news on the IEA’s oil forecast for India.

The tech-savvy Sankalp is also the Delhi bureau’s in-house wizard for all things Apple, so it is no surprise that he will be spearheading our coverage in the area from Mumbai. The self-proclaimed ‘App Guy’ was an early adopter of ride-hailing apps, and introduced many in the Delhi newsroom to food delivery apps. He also often steps in to resolve minor tech issues for reporters.

Sankalp was previously with the Online team in Delhi, bolstering the India website’s business coverage since 2011, after graduating from the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. He is passionate about photography, history and trekking in the Himalayas. He’s read all of William Dalrymple’s work, and books on the two World Wars. An avid collector of watches and a not-too-bad bathroom singer, Sankalp hopes to climb Mount Everest some day.

It is also my pleasure to announce that Rahul Bhatia will be joining the Mumbai bureau as a correspondent focused on driving investigative coverage. Rahul has reported on corporate takeovers of media companies, infrastructure, technology, and sport. He began his journalism career in 2003 at Wisden Cricinfo – switching from advertising art direction at Ogilvy – and over the years has worked at Tehelka, Mint, GQ, Open Magazine, and The Caravan (where his love for deeper, investigative stories comes from).

In 2014 he co-founded a journalism startup called Peepli.org, a storytelling site that looked at new ways to tell stories about land and the environment. He likes taking risks, and looks for old under-reported stories, as well as complex stories. He is interested in tech, privacy, media, infrastructure, sport, and anything that has a good story buried in it.

Rahul grew up in Dubai, studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and in 2001 landed in Mumbai, where he hasn’t had a boring day in 15 years. He has a young family, including two small daughters who want to be reporters. He is gently nudging them in the opposite direction.

In 2015, Rahul won a Ramnath Goenka Award and a Red Ink Award for his profile of N Srinivasan, who then ruled global cricket. Rahul will be work closely with his colleagues in the Mumbai bureau, and report to Tom Lasseter, who recently joined Reuters as a special correspondent based in New Delhi.

Both Rahul and Sankalp are keen to get started and will be joining the team in Mumbai in a few weeks. Please join Tom and me in congratulating them and wishing them all the very best in their new roles