A newsroom story

Arun Shourie's latest book chronicles his battles as a journalist, including an account of his dismissals. Three other books by former editors offer variations of the same

I will put a board outside your office: “The Commissioner for Lost Causes.”

This was Ramnath Goenka’s remark, writes economist, politician and journalist Arun Shourie at the very opening of his latest book (The Commissioner for Lost Causes), as the doyen of Indian journalism walked into Shourie’s “little cabin” at the Indian Express. Goenka, or RNG, “was — and looked — mighty pleased”, he writes.

Shourie and his colleagues had been documenting the condition of undertrials in a months-long series, the kind of work critics — including some seniors in the paper — didn’t think qualified as