FORA.tv Speaker - Debanjan Chakrabarti

Debanjan Chakrabarti works for the British Council in India. The highlight of his long career is a brisk, run-a-ball 2 he scored at Eden Gardens in 2007, turning up for the British Council against the Calcutta Sports Journalists' Club. At the British Council, Chakrabarti is Head of the Intercultural Dialogue Programme. Chakrabarti has the additional responsibility of heading the British Council' Project English in East India. Chakrabarti was awarded the prestigious Felix Scholarship from India for his doctoral studies in the UK where he completed his thesis on Graham Greene's journalism and its impact on his fiction from the University of Reading. In India, Chakrabarti obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in English literature from Jadavpur University. Chakrabarti started his career as a journalist with The Telegraph in 1997, after which he joined the British Council, working on arts, film, literature and language projects. Chakrabarti then taught English literature very briefly at Visva Bharati University in Shantiniketan. While conducting his research in England, he designed and taught courses on Hindi films, Indian writing in English and Shakespeare at Reading University. Chakrabarti joined the British Council again on his return to India in 2004, initially as head of corporate communications in East India, before starting on his present assignment from January 2008.