Aroon Purie

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Aroon Purie is an Indian businessman, and the founder & editor in chief of India Today, a leading newsmagazine of India. He has served as editor of the magazine since founding it in 1975. India Today is printed in several languages other than English.

A chartered accountant, Purie first revived Thomson Press. He then set up Living Media to publish India Today, which has redefined magazine journalism in the country. The India Today group which has grown out of the magazine, is one of the largest media conglomerates in India.

The magazines run by the India Today are:

India Today English
India Today Spice
India Today Home
Business Today
India Today Hindi
India Today Telugu
India Today Tamil
India Today Malayalam
India Today Bengali
Golf Digest (Indian Edition)
Cosmopolitan (Indian Edition)
India Today Travel Plus
Design Today
Men's Health
Harvard Business Review (Indian Edition)
Mail Today (A newspaper bought out as a joint venture with the Daily Mail)

Along with this, the group also comes out with several supplements for all their magazines. New magazines, including one called 'Wealth Today' are also on the anvil.

Apart from a number of publications, the group also controls TV Today, which owns the popular Hindi news channel Aaj Tak in December 2000. TV Today, whose CEO is G Krishnan is a listed company whose shares are traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange. Other than Aaj Tak they also run three other channels - 'Headlines Today' an English language news channel, which has not been able to dent the lead of channels like NDTV, 'Tez' a snappy-format news channel, using a concept borrowed from CNN Headline News but in Hindi and Aaj Tak Dilli a local news channel for Delhi. A Business news channel in collaboration with Bloomberg is also expected shortly.

Aroon was educated at the Doon School, as were two editors of India Today (Suman Dubey and Inderjit Bhadwar). He earned a BSc Economics from the London School of Economics in 1965. He is married to Rekha Purie,a former model. He has 3 children, Kalli Purie, Koel Purieand Ankur Purie. His brother-in-law is the famous heart surgeon, Dr. Naresh Trehan.

India Today magazine was started by Aroon Purie's father, V.V.Purie and his sister Madhu Trehan. Aroon Purie had nothing to do with it until he took it over two years later when his sister returned to the United States and they couldn't keep any editor they hired. His sister Madhu Trehan was also instrumental in taking the India Today group into the television media, when she started Newstrack and then Aaj Tak. Aroon Purie"s youngest sister, Mandira Purie worked as a photojournalist with India Today.

According to Aroon Purie Editor in Chief of India Today "Our rankings have become the benchmark for academic standards in India". For 2008, India Today issue dated June 2, 2008 carries the India's Best Colleges An Exclusive Survey. Page 88 of this esteemed magazine says IIT Chennai has 200 seats and Page 90 says IIT Mumbai has 312 seats. Year 2007 IIT Chennai had 540 seats and IIT Mumbai had 574 seats. This esteemed magazine did not have a clue to number of seats in various IITs and has gone about ranking them. Do you think it has any credibility? This is the type of guffa they did for BITS Pilani in year 2004 which has been undoubtedly one among the top ranking universities in India. Its time for India today to do Mouthshut.com about their rankings becoming benchmarks for academic standards in India.