Arup Ghosh, Shireen Sethi quit Sahara Samay Rashtriya

Arup Ghosh, head of department, Sahara Samay Rashtriya has put in his papers. The development has been confirmed by Ghosh himself. Prabhat Dabral, erstwhile vice president news and head of regional channels, Sahara Samay, is now heading the channel.

The industry has been rife with rumours for the last few months that Ghosh was planning to quit. Sahara sources say that Ghosh had planned an exit a couple of months ago but was dissuaded by the management then.

Ghosh is quitting along with three other senior Sahara colleagues - head of NCR news Shireen Sethi, sports editor Sundeep Misra, and business editor Abhishek Kumar.

Ghosh and his team had joined Sahara Samay about three years back. He has worked in the print medium for 13 years for publications such as Hindustan Times, The Statesman and The Times Of India. He then moved to NDTV as a correspondent. Subsequently, he quit NDTV to start his own enterprise. Since the last three years, he has been associated with Sahara Samay Rashtriya as the channel head.

Disclosing the reasons behind his quitting, Ghosh says, "We spent three years in this organisation and helped the channel grow. Now, we want to move ahead in life and start some other projects."

Ghosh adds, "We are leaving this company on a positive note and it was a great learning opportunity for us. And, we are also grateful to the Sahara Group's chairman Subrata Roy, who showed great faith in us, by giving us the responsibility to launch and run a national news channel."

Prabhat Dabral, the new channel head of Sahara Samay, says, "I was officially asked to head Sahara Samay two days back. Thereafter, I have marked some loose ends at the channel and will soon try to rectify them." Dabral will now be handling the twin portfolios of regional (his earlier assignment) as well as national news channels.

Commenting on Ghosh and his team's exit from Sahara Samay, Dabral says, "Sahara Samay had a contract with Arup's Big Two Communications and the reason for their quitting is that the tenure of the contract is over now."

Countering Dabral's comments, Ghosh says, "Our exit had nothing to do with the expiry of the contract as the deal was valid till February 2005. And, there is nothing wrong with Sahara Samay's national channel. In fact, it was the national channel which provided 50 per cent of the content for the regional channel."

© 2004 agencyfaqs!