She's one of television's best-known faces. The woman who showed us what was really happening in Kargil - Barkha Dutt - sure is a Femina Platinum Woman.
We believe Barkha’s a Platinum Woman because:
She made full use of every opportunity that came her way. “I was really interested in film and TV production. I approached Prannoy Roy to become a producer. I wanted to make documentaries. I was also told to try my hand at news and I thought, why not! My entire generation, after all, had grown up on The World This Week . ‘‘I have never planned my professional life. All the twists and turns in it have been circumstantial. I believe that good, fearless journalism still makes a difference.’’
She doesn’t plan her life, but she knows what she wants.
“My only conscious decision, if I can call it that, has been to stick to one area of reportage: Jammu and Kashmir.” Over the years, Barkha has discovered many layers to the Kashmir story. Stories and people she feels emotionally attached to. "Every journalist wants to know one area beyond the superficial.”
Seven years and many awards later, she is still waiting to have a substantive body of work that can be remembered, like her late mother and well-known journalist Purba Dutt’s.
“In many ways, my mother has been a role model. She and others.”

Honesty is not an act with her. With Barkha what you see is what you get.
“I’ve tried not to act in front of the camera and to just be myself. An average person viewers can identify with. Not a TV personality. I won’t say that if tomorrow I become anonymous, it won’t annoy me. But it’s important to never take this attention seriously. I can laugh over it!”
This 30-year-old has handled the downside of success with equal grace.

Her Kargil reportage fetched her the prestigious Chameli Devi Jain Award. It also brought her reactions of envy and malice. People have called her stories on Kargil and Jammu and Kashmir either too jingoistic or too pro-separatist! Some said, in her rush to get a story, she caused the death of soldiers.
The maliciousness hurt at first, but Barkha chose not to dignify the rumours by responding. Today, she’s learnt how to deal with it. “I can be easily hurt, but I can just as easily cut myself away.”

The innocence and idealism are still very much alive in this petite woman, though by her own admission, she is no longer a ‘23-year-old sound-bite soldier with fire in her belly!’.
“Today, journalism is all about powerbroking — it’s about knowing the right people.”
Because she knows her work as a reporter, ‘can make a difference somewhere’.
A ‘Reality Bites’ report highlighting the deaths due to starvation in Rajasthan and the plight of 20 sick children with no food, resulted in relief reaching the area. Most importantly, the story became a part of the Right to Food petition in the Supreme Court.
She has the courage to recognise her strength and her weakness.
“I’m very impulsive. It’s sometimes a plus and sometimes a minus.”

Jewellery Courtesy Platinum Guild International