Career

Vishnu Som is an Editor and Senior Anchor with New Delhi Television (NDTV), India's largest 24 hour news network. Som has reported extensively on war, conflict, aviation and natural disasters. He has covered the Kargil

Kargil War

The Kargil War ,, also known as the Kargil conflict, was an armed conflict between India and Pakistan that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control...

 (North Kashmir), Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as the 2004 Asian Tsunami

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...

 and 2001 Bhuj (Gujarat, India) earthquake

2001 Gujarat earthquake

The 2001 Gujarat earthquake occurred on January 26, 2001, India's 52nd Republic Day, at 08:46 AM local time and lasted for over two minutes. The epicentre was about 9 km south-southwest of the village of Chobari in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District of Gujarat, India...

.

Som has completed a multi-part documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 series called Great Battles, on the role of Indian soldiers in some of the greatest battles of the last century from Monte Cassino

Battle of Monte Cassino

The Battle of Monte Cassino was a costly series of four battles during World War II, fought by the Allies against Germans and Italians with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome.In the beginning of 1944, the western half of the Winter Line was being anchored by Germans...

 in the Second World War to the Siachen high altitude conflict

Mountain warfare

Mountain warfare refers to warfare in the mountains or similarly rough terrain. This type of warfare is also called Alpine warfare, named after the Alps mountains...

. His documentary series, India's Underwater Treasures, which looked at the impact of global warming on India's coral formations won the best series award at the Indian Telly Awards, 2008 and a special commendation at the Commonwealth Broadcasting Awards. Som's programme, The Jet Set, looked at the experience of flying along with pilots on fighter aircraft such as the F/A-18, F-16, MiG-35 and Gripen.

Som has just completed producing and airing part two of NDTV's series `India's Underwater Treasures.' The two part documentary series, called `Shipwreck' which featured footage shot underwater showcased the history of 4 ancient steamships located off Minicoy island in the Lakshadweep chain. A documentary series of this type has never been attempted before in India. As a prime time

Prime time

Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

anchor, Som handles the programmes India this Week, The X Factor, and The News at 9, among other news bulletins. He has more than 7000 hours of live anchoring experience.

Recent Controversy

The blogosphere was recently abuzz with Som's duel with the independent defence analyst Nitin Pai on twitter. Nitin took the position that Som had used inflammatory language while commenting on the Swiss minaret ban. Som responded to this position in a series of comments on Nitin's blog. A number of netizens, taking a range of positions on the debate, used the forum to engage in a lively discussion on the implications of the comments.