Pragya Tiwari studied law as a graduate and post-graduate student in the UK. She grew up with a keen interest in the arts and reading and her continued interest led to her writing columns on culture and politics for Mumbai Mirror, The Hindu, and Deccan Herald.
For a while, she straddled both worlds, ultimately giving up on practicing law in order to become a full time journalist. Her first full time job as a journalist was that of Web Editor, Tehelka, and her mandate was to revamp the magazine’s website and turn it into a publication in its own right. While at Tehelka she also continued to write on culture and politics – including investigative journalism.
After Tehelka, she set up a digital media company called Oijo and, under its banner, co-founded BalconyTV India, an independent music platform and The Big Indian Picture, an award-winning digital publication on cinema and culture. Oijo Media developed into a consultancy and production house for digital media and Pragya, as one of its directors, was involved in setting up multiple projects executed by the boutique company. She also consulted in an individual capacity with digital publications in order to help them plan newsroom and content strategy.
In 2016, she went back to university, to pursue a year long Executive Masters in Public Policy from the London School of Economics and returned to take up a full time position as the Editor in Chief of Vice India.
Despite pursuing an active career in digital media and taking up studies again, she has always kept writing, as a freelancer, on politics and culture for publications such as Hindustan Times, Catch, Mint Lounge, DNA, India.com, Firstpost, The Times of India, Elle, The Caravan, The Wire, Scroll, The Hindu, The Hindu BusinessLine, Quartz, The Telegraph, and The Quint. She is also a regular contributor to The New York Times and Al Jazeera.
Pragya is also an avid public speaker. She has spoken regularly at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Times Lit Fest, Algebra, NDTV 24x7 and NDTV India and several other similar platforms.
Combining her love for editorial content and public speaking, she has been part of shaping event properties such as the Rajasthan International Folk Festival, Stagetalk at Prithvi Theatre, and Bridge Talks with Caravan India.
In a similar vein she headed Flint Culture to develop digital and social campaigns and consult on programming, events, institutional development and communications.
Over the next year she hopes to take her digital media company, Oijo Media, to new heights while continuing to write as a freelancer, as she always has.
On this site you will find a selection of her writings and videos.
She can be reached at ptAToijoDOTin
