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.
He founded FactChecker in 2014 ahead of the then parliamentary elections with the objective of fact checking statements made by people in public life. FactChecker is India's first fact checking initiative and in the region as well. FactChecker is a sister organisation to the award-winning IndiaSpend, a public interest journalism outfit which uses data to write and syndicate stories in areas like health, education, environment.
In 2016, he founded BOOM, an independent journalism initiative that fights misinformation and explains issues with the larger objective of making the internet safer. 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
Organisations that contributed more than 5% of total donations in the financial year 2020-21 are listed below:
Lal Family Foundation
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.