Hitarth Pandya

hitarthp@nuv.ac.in

Assistant Professor, SLSE

Education

A Post Graduate in Sociology from the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, Hitarth Pandya has spent over 20 years in the field of Newspaper Industry, Mass Communication and Public Relations industry, Hitarth Pandya followed his passion to educate school children about Environment and started his own initiative Kids for Environmental Development Initiatives (KEDI) where every day about 1000 students get the knowledge about environment through a unique module. Aspiring to make learning of subjects a lifelong impressions, Hitarth believes in connecting education with day-to-day life.

Stint with Journalism

Hitarth spent 17 years of his professional career with leading English national newspapers like The Times of India, The Indian Express and the Asian Age and Ahmedabad Mirror and Divya Bhaskar. In his journey Hitarth reported several investigative stories. He also covered natural calamities, human interest stories, environmental issues and business. During his stint with various publications he also developed deep passion and understanding about photography and came up with several photo stories for different publications.

After beginning his journalistic career with The Times of India, he joined The Asian Age and covered news from Central and South Gujarat single handedly for four years. During this stint he covered important events like Kutch earthquake, Gujarat Riots and elections.

In 2005 he joined The Times of India, Surat where he handled the team of up-country reporters. After spending more than two years in Surat he made the Bureau Chief for Indian Express, Vadodara and headed five reporters and two photographers. For his versatility in language, he was recruited as the Special Correspondent at Divya Bhaskar, Ahmedabad where he broke several news stories from Gandhinagar. After the short stint with Divya Bhaskar he joined The Ahmedabad Mirror a Times Group publication as an Assistant Editor where he headed the team of 12 reporters and five photographers.

During the course of his career in journalism, he has travelled extensively across Gujarat, and covered several major events in the state including the earthquake, communal riots, general elections and floods, which ravaged Surat.

Awards and appreciation in journalism

Hitarth won several awards of “Star Performer” for his stories in Ahmedabad Mirror. His stories frequently found place in national editions of different publications.
As the Assistant Editor and team coordinator he played an instrumental role in streamlining the deadlines which is one of the most crucial aspects in Newspaper industry.

Stint with Public Relations Industry

Hitarth worked as Associate Account Director with the MSLGROUP, a France based Public Relation firm and headed the Gujarat operations from Ahmedabad. Apart from leading the team in Gujarat, he was also the member of National Crisis Management Team at the MSLGROUP.
With an advantage of having in-depth understanding about Gujarat Media, he set new benchmarks and even started new precedent of garnering media coverage by developing strong content for the clients targeting various media platforms.

Won awards for Best Performing Team and Best Performance Individual Category
Became member of the National Crisis Management Team at MSLGROUP India

Hitarth also worked for Centre for Fuel Studies and Research a non-government organisation, which works for the Energy Sector. He was responsible for taking out the monthly news-letter which was delivered to leading companies in oil, natural gas and power sectors. The job involved extensive research and analysis of market trends, innovation and energy sector scenario in the country.

Environmental Education’ – The motto of his lifeAfter spending over two decades in professional life, Hitarth is now passionately engaged with school children. He is teaching Environmental Education to about 900 school students through his novel approach at schools since past four years now.Hitarth has also been a Visiting Faculty at Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at The Maharaja Sayajirao University where he taught Print Media, Environmental Reporting, Public Relations and Corporate Communications.