Former Hindustan Times journalist to lead Kremlin broadcaster’s biggest foreign bet

DELHI: Ashok Bagriya, a journalist who cut his teeth as legal editor at Hindustan Times and CNN-News18, has been named chief executive of RT India. The appointment comes as Vladimir Putin touched down in New Delhi to personally inaugurate what the Kremlin-backed network calls its largest overseas venture.

Bagriya has assembled a team of over 100 staff and built a new office complete with studio and newsroom. The channel promises four daily English language bulletins focused on India-Russia ties, international affairs and what it terms a “multipolar world”.

On launch day, Bagriya sat down with Herman Gref, chief executive and chairman of Sberbank, who pledged $100m to beef up the Russian bank’s Indian operations, a signal of deepening economic links between Moscow and New Delhi.

The timing is pointed. RT, formerly Russia Today, has been banned across much of the West since the Ukraine war began. The India launch marks a pivot for a network shut out of Europe and North America.

Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Peskov made no bones about the strategy. “Sometimes it’s better to lose the right to broadcast in the small democracies (so-called democracies) and launch in the biggest one,” he said.

RT India is betting that New Delhi, which has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, offers friendlier terrain than Brussels or Washington. Whether Indian viewers will tune in remains to be seen.