Neerja Chowdhury is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and political commentator. In the course of a distinguished career of over forty years, she was political editor of the Indian Express for ten years and covered the terms of eight prime ministers and ten Lok Sabha elections. She has won several prestigious awards for her journalism including the first Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons (1981), the India Today–PUCL Journalism for Human Rights Award (1983), and the Prem Bhatia Award for Best Political Reporting (2009–10). She is contributing editor, the Indian Express, and her weekly column, The Neerja Chowdhury Column, is widely followed by participants and observers of contemporary Indian politics.