Govindraj Ethiraj is a television and print journalist who has reported and written on Indian business for over 25 years. He is a media executive and entrepreneur whose public interest journalism ventures are safeguarding the transparency, accuracy, and integrity of news in specific and the internet in general in India and world-wide.
Most recently, he founded BOOM, an independent journalism initiative that fights misinformation and explains issues with the larger objective of making the internet safer. He also founded the award-winning IndiaSpend, a public interest journalism outfit which uses data to write and syndicate stories in areas like health, education, environment, and FactChecker, which monitors media, politicians and other figures for accuracy. BOOM and FactChecker were India’s first verified members of the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), affiliated with Poynter Institute. IndiaSpend is a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).
Previously, he was Founder-Editor in Chief of Bloomberg TV India, a 24-hours business news service launched out of Mumbai in 2008. He continues to anchor seasonal shows in the business, economy and financial markets space, on Indian broadcast television and on digital.
Prior to setting up Bloomberg TV, he worked with Business Standard newspaper as Editor (New Media), and before that, Govindraj spent five years with television channel CNBC-TV18 where he actively drove most of the channels’ programming growth and expansion. Prior to television, he worked in print in The Economic Times and leading business magazines.
Govindraj was named a 2018 McNulty Prize Laureate in recognition for his leadership with BOOM, IndiaSpend, and FactChecker. He is a Fellow of the Inaugural Class of Ananta Aspen’s India Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and winner of the 2014 BMW Responsible Leaders Awards.
Email: govindraj@indiaspend.org
Other Trustees
Ayaz Memon Shrikant Karwa
PATRONS
Rohini Nilekani is Founder-Chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation she set up with a private endowment, to work on water and sanitation issues in India. She is also Founder-Chairperson of Pratham Books, a charitable trust which seeks to put “A book in every child’s hand.” An ex-journalist, author and philanthropist, Rohini has been deeply involved with development issues for more than a decade. She is currently a member of the Audit Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. She sits on the Boards of many non-profits, notably ATREE (the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment) and Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services. Rohini has authored two books published by Penguin India- a novel – Stillborn – and also a non–fiction account of dialogues she moderated between social and corporate leaders called Uncommon Ground.
Vikram Lal is former Chairman of the Eicher Group. He did his Senior Cambridge from the Doon School in 1957, after which he went abroad to study mechanical engineering at the Technical University Darmstadt in West Germany. He joined Eicher, the family company established by his father, in 1966. Eicher started as the first tractor manufacturer in India in 1960, and eventually branched out into light commercial vehicles in 1986, and then into heavy vehicles. Amongst other businesses, it acquired Royal Enfield, an iconic brand of motorcycles, in 1990. Mr Lal is the president of Common Cause, a public interest NGO pursuing major issues relating to reform, governance and the enforcement of law, since December 2004. He was Vice President of the World Wide Fund for Nature – India for 7 years and a member of the Board of Governors of the Doon School for 6 years. Currently, he is on the boards of Pratham Delhi Education Initiative and Resource Alliance India.
Pirojsha Godrej Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Godrej Group and is instrumental in carrying out Group’s charitable works across many areas like including immunisation for children, family welfare and nature conservation. It was established in 1972 and owns stakes in the holding company, Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. The income from dividends is utilised for promoting the objectives of the Trust.
The Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation (IPSMF) has provided financial support to the Spending & Policy Research Foundation (SPRF) for the purpose of reporting and publishing stories of public interest. The IPSMF does not take any legal or moral responsibility whatsoever for the content published by SPRF on its website factchecker.in or on any of its other platforms.
Forbes Marshall is a leading manufacturer of steam engineering and control instrumentation solutions. Their products and services help customers save energy, improve process quality and throughput, and run a clean and safe factory. They have a global presence in five continents and their customers range from a food-processor or garment factory, manufacturers of consumer products to the world’s largest refineries. Their R&D efforts have resulted in several award winning products. The focus areas of their diverse social initiatives are Education, Entrepreneurship, Health and Community Empowerment; the key stakeholders being women, youth, and children from disadvantaged sections of society. They have been listed several times among the top Best Workplaces in India, by surveys conducted by the Great Place to Work Institute and Economic Times and ranked as one of the best workplaces in Asia.
The Spending & Policy Research Foundation (SPRF) was set up in August 2011, and started with a corpus of Rs 10,000 from Govindraj Ethiraj, SPRF’s managing trustee.
The funds/donations received by SPRF have been deployed to further the cause of data journalism. As part of this endeavour, SPRF runs IndiaSpend and FactChecker.in.
The details of funds received by SPRF over the years, and the expenditure are as follows:
In the financial year 2018-19, as of December 31, 2018, SPRF received Rs 13,250,000 in donations, and Rs 158,250 as online donations from readers.
In the first quarter of 2018-19, SPRF received Rs 4,500,000 as general donation from the Lal Family Foundation, as a contribution for meeting operational expenses towards the objective of the trust.
In the second quarter, SPRF received Rs 3,750,000 as general donation from the Independent Spirited Media Foundation as a contribution to build a team of reporters and a network of freelancers to break and report on stories of public-interest in order to build informed public opinion.
SPRF also received Rs 1,500,000 as general donation from the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation as a contribution for team costs and to further continue the effort to reach regional media and audiences in different parts of the country.
Further, SPRF received Rs 3,400,000 from the Impact Foundation (Dasra) through Mr Ashish Dhawan as a contribution for reporting on India Governance Report through a monthly newsletter that brings together stories of good governance and policy-making from across India.
In the third quarter, SPRF received Rs 100,000 as general donation from Mr Anirudha Dutta to meet the objective of the trust.
Of the online donations received from readers, 49 donations were for amounts more than Rs 1,000, and are listed below:
| Donor's Name | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|
| Pavan Nair | 3,000 |
| Rujuta Diwekar | 50,000 |
| Romit Mitra | 3,000 |
| Sachin Agarwal | 10,000 |
| Mitali Saran | 1,000 |
| Jennifer Fernandes | 1,000 |
| Harish Addanki | 1,000 |
| D Kapoor | 3,000 |
| N Saravade | 3,000 |
| Manish Gadhvi | 3,000 |
| Suman Srivastava | 3,000 |
| Sumit Zaveri | 3,000 |
| Vignan Velivela | 1,000 |
| Robert Myers | 1,000 |
| Shanthini Vasudevan | 3,000 |
| Sandeep Kamath | 3,000 |
| Shishira Rudrappa | 3,000 |
| Ankush Vengurlekar | 2,000 |
| Vivek Sundara | 5,000 |
| Abanith Viswam | 5,000 |
| Arun Murthy Batulla | 1,000 |
| Abhishek Sinha | 3,000 |
| Krishnan Nagasubramani | 1,000 |
| Sonia Falerio | 3,000 |
| J S Jassal | 3,000 |
| Swarna Rajagopalan | 3,000 |
| Amarjeet Singh | 3,000 |
| Muthuraj Thangavel | 1,000 |
| Abhishek Nayak | 1,000 |
| Karnika Kohli | 2,000 |
| Yohan Matthew | 2,000 |
| Surabhi Tandon | 1,000 |
| Neha Bhatia | 1,000 |
| Siddarth Kumar | 1,000 |
| Khalid Anjum | 1,000 |
| Vishal Gadba | 1,000 |
| Vimal Pathasarthy | 1,000 |
| Sunil Bhatta | 1,000 |
| V Abhishek | 1,000 |
| Ankrity Das | 1,000 |
| Prasanna Thirunavukkarasu | 1,000 |
| Sunil Caleb | 1,000 |
| Arkid Mitra | 1,000 |
| Shalini Singh | 1,000 |
| Debiprasad Mishra | 1,000 |
| Subhash Sharan | 1,000 |
| Alekh Angre | 1,000 |
| Suniil Caleb | 1,000 |
| Bhavesh Shah | 1,000 |
In the financial year 2018-19, as of December 31, 2018, SPRF incurred an expenditure of Rs 13,100,402. The details are as follows:
In the financial year 2017-18, SPRF received Rs 12,650,000 in donations, Rs 40,000 as article subscription fee, and Rs 62,500 as online donations from readers.
In the first quarter of 2017-18, SPRF received Rs 4,000,000 as general donation from the Lal Family Foundation as a contribution towards research, analysis and reporting on education, gender and youth, healthcare and urbanization related issues.
No donations were received in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, SPRF received Rs 1,500,000 from the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation as a contribution for meeting operational expenses towards the objective of the trust.
SPRF also received Rs 3,400,000 from the Impact Foundation (Dasra) through MCKS Trust Fund as a contribution for reporting on India Governance Report through monthly a newsletter that brings together stories of good governance and policy-making from across India. The newsletter seeks to inform interested readers from government, academia, think-tanks and civil society so as to widen and deepen the discussion on policy and governance issues.
In the fourth quarter, SPRF received Rs 3,750,000 from the Independent Spirited Media Foundation as a contribution to build a team of reporters and a network of freelancers to break and report on stories of public-interest in order to build informed public opinion.
Of the online donations received from readers, 25 donations were for amounts more than Rs 1,000, and are listed below:
| Donor's Name | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|
| Sachin Agarwal | 10,000 |
| Nirav Shah | 10,000 |
| Meenal Mamdani | 5,000 |
| P Rajat Kedilaya | 5,000 |
| Habeeb Ahmed | 2,000 |
| Himank Bhanot | 2,000 |
| Liby Johnson | 2,000 |
| P Rajesh Sharma | 2,000 |
| Vishnuteerth Agnihotri | 2,000 |
| Pawnajeet singh | 2,000 |
| Swati Puri | 2,000 |
| Kiran Kumbhar | 1,000 |
| Plessey Mathews | 1,000 |
| Abhishek Desikan | 1,000 |
| Dheeraj Ravindranath | 1,000 |
| Ajeeth Rajamany | 1,000 |
| Navneet Raj | 1,000 |
| abhishek Chaudhari | 1,000 |
| Alekh Angre | 1,000 |
| Nilesh Bhojani | 1,000 |
| Parlene Chang | 1,000 |
| Sudha Iyer | 1,000 |
| Swaroop CH | 1,000 |
| Utkarsh Singh | 1,000 |
| Annbel Mehta | 1,000 |
In the financial year 2017-18, SPRF incurred an expenditure of Rs 13,536,424. The details are as follows:
In the financial year 2016-17, SPRF received Rs 11,500,000 in donations, Rs 1,335,588 as article subscription fee, and Rs 47,850 as online donations from readers.
In the first quarter of 2016-17, SPRF received Rs 5,000,000 as general donation from the Independent Spirited Media Foundation, as a contribution to build an ecosystem that sets trends, fosters and accelerates excellence in public-interest journalism.
No donations were received in the second and third quarters.
In the fourth quarter, SPRF received Rs 6,500,000 in general donations. This includes Rs 5,000,000 from the Independent Spirited Media Foundation (as a contribution to build ecosystem that sets trends, fosters and accelerates excellence in public-interest journalism), and Rs 1,500,000 from the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation as a contribution for meeting operational expenses towards the objective of the trust.
Of the online donations received from readers, 15 donations were more than Rs 1,000, and are listed below:
| Donor's Name | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|
| Sachin Agarwal | 5,000 |
| Bindu Venkatesh | 5,000 |
| Rati Forbes | 5,000 |
| Thiru Ramakrishnan | 3,000 |
| Vivek Sundara | 3,000 |
| Ganesh Ramamoorthy | 2,000 |
| Mantha VS Rao | 2,000 |
| Rajiv Govindan | 1,000 |
| Habeeb Nizamudin | 1,000 |
| Rahul Jagtap | 1,000 |
| Chandi Shougrakpam | 1,000 |
| Jatinderjit Singh | 1,000 |
| Subramanyam Iyer | 1,000 |
| Niyati Shenoy | 1,000 |
| Muralidhar Rao | 1,000 |
In the financial year 2016-17, SPRF incurred an expenditure of Rs 12,392,415. The details are as follows:
In the financial year 2015-16, SPRF received Rs 8,500,000 in donations, Rs 561,750 as article subscription fee, and Rs 41,950 as online donations from readers.
In the first quarter of 2015-16, SPRF received Rs 3,500,000 as general donation from the Vikram Sarabhai Foundation.
No donations were received in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, SPRF received Rs 1,500,000 as general donation from the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation.
In the fourth quarter, SPRF received Rs 3,500,000 as general donation from the Lal Family Foundation.
Of the online donations received from readers, 18 donations were more than Rs 1,000, and are listed below:
| Donor's Name | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|
| Nandita Mallik | 5,000 |
| Sreekant Khandekar | 5,000 |
| Rengarajan Soundararajan | 3,000 |
| Rao B V | 3,000 |
| Arvind Murlidharan | 3,000 |
| Amyn Pirani | 3,000 |
| VVP Sharma | 3,000 |
| Sandeep Kunkunuru | 2,000 |
| Abdul Muheet Chowdhary | 1,000 |
| Sudheer Kumar | 1,000 |
| Pawan Rai | 1,000 |
| Edi Alva | 1,000 |
| Sachin Pada | 1,000 |
| VT Andy | 1,000 |
| Mukund Raichur | 1,000 |
| Pinky David | 1,000 |
| Amrit Rai | 1,000 |
| K V Ramaswamy | 1,000 |
In the financial year 2015-16, SPRF incurred an expenditure of Rs 12,165,625. The details are as follows:
In the financial year 2014-15, SPRF received Rs 12,564,000 in donations. This was also the year when we opened our online donation gateway, and we received Rs 32,453 in online donations from readers.
In the first quarter of 2014-15, SPRF received Rs 3,000,000 as corpus donation from the Vikram Sarabhai Foundation.
In the second quarter, SPRF received Rs 6,000,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| Rohini Nilekani | General donation | 3,500,000 |
| Sudarshan Securities | General donation | 2,500,000 |
No donations were received in the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, SPRF received Rs 3,564,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| Impact Foundation | General donation | 44,000 |
| Rohini Nilekani | General donation | 3,500,000 |
| Srijan Foundation | General donation | 20,000 |
Of the online donations received from readers, 12 donations were more than Rs 1,000, and are listed below:
| Donor's Name | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|
| Brian Almeida | 11,000 |
| Sumit Mishra | 1,000 |
| Nikhil Lakshman | 5,000 |
| Arvind Murlidharan | 3,000 |
| RamaKrishna Vadlamudi | 2,000 |
| Jaideep Giridhar | 1,000 |
| Hemant Karnik | 1,000 |
| Swapna Pillai | 1,000 |
| Tanvi Negi | 1,000 |
| Sonia Faleiro | 1,000 |
| Adway Mitra | 1,000 |
| Vivek kamath | 1,000 |
In the financial year 2014-15, SPRF incurred an expenditure of Rs 8,273,157. The details are as follows:
In the financial year 2013-14, SPRF received Rs 6,744,160 in donations and Rs 205,000 as article subscription fee.
In the first quarter of 2013-14, SPRF received Rs 3,174,160 as general donation from Rohini Nilekani.
No donations were received in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, SPRF received Rs 2,470,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| Bala Pathasarathy | General donation | 70,000 |
| Prabhakar Kalavacherla | General donation | 300,000 |
| Sunil Kaul | General donation | 100,000 |
| Vikram Sarabhai Foundation | Corpus donation | 2,000,000 |
In the fourth quarter of 2013-14, SPRF received Rs 1,100,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| India Value Fund | General donation | 100,000 |
| Pirojsha Godrej Foundation | General donation | 1,000,000 |
In the financial year 2013-14, SPRF incurred an expenditure of Rs 6,053,916. The details are as follows:
In the financial year 2012-13, SPRF received Rs 2,045,000 in donations and Rs 870,000 as article subscription fee.
In the first quarter (Q1) of 2012-13, SPRF received Rs 995,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| RSM Foundation | General donation | 165,000 |
| Cedar Management Consulting Pvt Ltd | Corpus donation | 80,000 |
| Gaja Advisors Pvt Ltd | Corpus donation | 750,000 |
In the second quarter (Q2), SPRF received Rs 150,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| Idiscoveri Education Pvt Ltd | General donation | 25,000 |
| Ganesh Rengaswamy | Corpus donation | 25,000 |
| Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd | Corpus donation | 50,000 |
| Nachiket Mor | Corpus donation | 50,000 |
In the third quarter (Q3), SPRF received Rs 725,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| RSM Foundation | General donation | 125,000 |
| Bala Pathasarathy | General donation | 75,000 |
| TVS Capital Funds Limited | General donation | 250,000 |
| Sanjay Swamy | General donation | 25,000 |
| Gaja Advisors Pvt Ltd | Corpus donation | 250,000 |
In the fourth quarter (Q4), SPRF received Rs 175,000 in donations. The details are as follows:
| Donor | Nature of donation | Amount (In Rs) |
|---|---|---|
| Praveen Chakravarty | General donation | 165,000 |
| Rashmi Prahlad Bansal | General donation | 10,000 |
In the financial year 2012-13, SPRF incurred an expenditure of Rs 3,148,153. The details are as follows:
