Samar Halarnkar is the editor of Indiaspend.org, a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit. He was until recently also involved with setting up the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation, a non-partisan trust created to fund public-interest journalism in India.

Samar is the author of Nirvana Under the Rain Tree, an early chronicle of India’s internet revolution, and A Married Man’s Guide to Creative Cooking--And Other Dubious Adventures. He is also a columnist, writing on social and economic change in India, science and technology, the treatment of women and religious affairs. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley and a fellow at the Nieman Foundation, Harvard University.

A journalist for 24 years, his last full-time job was Managing Editor of the Hindustan Times, a leading English broadsheet, where he took a special interest in creating teams of reporters to cover issues of public interest, such as urban renewal, hunger, health and poverty. Samar is an enthusiastic cook, the fallout of his culinary experiences finding their way into a popular cooking column and blog.

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