Lessons Learned Over Four Decades as an Investigative Journalist In India

It is not easy to catch Ritu Sarin for an interview on the sidelines of journalism conferences, and almost not at all when she is busy in the newsroom. A familiar name in investigative journalism in India for over four decades, Sarin is an award-winning journalist who focuses on internal security, corruption, and money laundering. Based in India’s capital New Delhi, she is the executive editor of news and investigations at The Indian Express, a daily newspaper whose tagline is “journalism of courage.”

Sarin began her journalism career in 1982 as a magazine reporter. India was coming out of The Emergency — a turbulent two-year period marked by press censorship and a curtailing of civil liberties — and reporters were once again finding their feet. When sitting over cups of tea in press clubs around India, journalists who participated in and witnessed the journalism of the 1980s sometimes fondly reminisce about the good old days of shoe-leather reporting and no-nonsense editors. It was in this environment that Sarin got her start.

After cutting her teeth in two different magazines she began working at The Pioneer, one of the oldest English-language Indian dailies. In 1996, Sarin moved to The Indian Express, where she continues to work.

A member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999, she has worked on several global collaborative projects including Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files and the FinCEN Files. She is also a founder-member of ICIJ’s Network Committee, a member-led body that guides the global network of journalists on reporting practices and collaborations, and in 2023, she joined ICIJ’s board.

Sarin was a speaker at the 14th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in November 2025. Shortly afterwards, she spoke to GIJN about her investigative work and shared tips for conducting investigations. The interview has been lightly edited for style.

GIJN: Of all the investigations you’ve worked on, which has been your favorite and why?

Ritu Sarin: It is difficult to choose from stories done over a four-decade period but there were many: At the  Delhi Recorder, the magazine I began journalism with, there was a cover story titled The Smuggling of Sex, probing how Bangladeshi girls were being “sold” on the India border and how many ended up in brothels. For Sunday magazine, I took my first flight out of Delhi for an assignment in the aftermath of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. I reported from outside labor rooms of government hospitals on the number of physically-challenged children being born to victims in localities where the toxic gas had leaked.

At The Indian Express, where I have now worked for three decades, too, it is difficult to choose. There were several espionage breaks; in 2011, an investigation stemming from a letter that India’s then Finance Minister wrote to the Prime Minister alleging that bugs had been planted in his offices; there was an investigative series of fake cases with identical “evidence” being registered under the Official Secrets Act. More recently, in 2023, there was a story on allegation of gang rape by top bureaucrats in the Andaman and Nicobar islands and in mid-2025, I traveled to several states to track down “mule account holders’’ through whose bank accounts huge sums of money were parked after being stolen via cyber attacks and digital arrest frauds.

GIJN: What are the biggest challenges in terms of investigative reporting in your country?

RS: India offers a spread of subjects for investigative reporters. However, there are challenges. One is the shrinking access to sources, whistleblowers, and top government officials or members of the ruling party. The other is unverified, often, inaccurate news being circulated on social media which reduces the credibility of mainstream, legacy media. Yet another challenge for investigative reporters is the advent of AI and the lurking dangers of landing fake data and documents, which are increasingly becoming difficult to authenticate.

All the above are the challenges we encounter. To offset such disadvantages of a tougher working environment, reporters need to get back to shoe-leather journalism; do more spot reporting and thus, reduce dependency on documents and data which may have come from secondary sources. One more challenge is the falling engagement levels with readers and viewers. This is especially disconcerting for investigative reporters who may have spent weeks and months on a single story.

GIJN: What is your best tip for interviewing?

RS: I prefer a conversational instead of an interrogative style for interviewing. I recall an exclusive interview I did with former President Zail Singh in 1987. During the chat, he admitted to the huge sums of money the opposition had offered him to dismiss the-then government of Rajiv Gandhi. I recall trying to be nonplussed when he said this. Had I reacted with astonishment, he may have asked me to keep the portion off-record. The interview created a furor.

The lesson from this: pretend to be nonplussed when you land a scoop. Don’t alert the subject. Another tip: along with well-researched questions, anticipate replies and be ready with supplementary questions. Also, keep data and documents handy to show — not share [with] — the subject. Once he or she realizes you have all this, chances are more beans will be spilled.

GIJN: What is a favorite reporting tool, database, or app you use in your investigations?

RS: The tools depend on the task at hand. It could vary from a scrutiny of open source Indian repositories like those of the Registrar of Companies (RoC) or reports of the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG). Then, depending on the assignment, you may need to go to paid foreign sites for downloading details of offshore companies or, maybe, use the ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks dataset. There are many lists of datasets and tools available and at GIJC25, a session by Martha Mendoza added another useful one: a compilation of 21 US sites which answers the question: ‘What is Washington doing in your country?’

GIJN: What is the best advice you’ve gotten thus far in your career and what words of advice would you give an aspiring investigative journalist?

RS: Best advice: file and forget. Never ruminate over how a story is being packaged or how it will impact. Move on to the next one. To an aspiring investigative journalist I would say: be ready for the long haul and enjoy the building block experience. Also, be honest with your sources, subjects, and editors alike.

GIJN: What is the greatest mistake you have made and what lessons did you learn?

RS: Once I was to meet a top source from an intelligence agency for a very important follow-up story for The Indian Express and made the mistake of mentioning to a colleague that I was due to meet him. That was a blunder. Just when I was leaving the house to pick up the promised documents from his office, the intelligence chief called me, named the same reporter and chided me for letting her know we were meeting. Our meeting was cancelled. Lesson: resist name-dropping and never reveal the nature of your acquaintances and contacts, especially those from the security or intelligence establishment.

GIJN: How do you avoid burnout in your line of work?

RS: One, it goes without saying you need to keep in touch with multimedia trends and technology shifts. Two, retain the confidence that you alone can give the best and specialized treatment to the story at hand and treat it with a fresh flourish. Three, be physically fit and most important, be in touch with your peers. Investigative reporters tend to work in isolation, but it is equally important to remain in circulation.

GIJN: What about investigative journalists do you find frustrating, or do you hope will change in the future? 

RS:  What is trying and stressing is dealing with sources who suddenly start ghosting you and thus, deny you the last-mile pieces of information or evidence for an investigation.

Neha Banka is an independent journalist based in India, and primarily reports on the Asia-Pacific with a focus on the Korean Peninsula. She also reports on foreign policy, borders, migration, public health, religion, Indigenous communities, climate and the environment. She has reported from several countries around the world, producing original ground reports on a wide range of subjects. Banka has had work published by Haaretz, Al Jazeera English, and The Indian Express, among other outlets. She has never reported directly to Sarin.