NewsClick

About NewsClick

NewsClick is a New Delhi-based progressive news portal that has covered Indian politics, economy, labour, agriculture and culture from a left and critical perspective since 2009. Founded by engineer-activist Prabir Purkayastha, who serves as its editor-in-chief, NewsClick describes itself as an independent media organisation focused on news from India and the world, with a particular emphasis on people's movements, workers' struggles, agrarian issues and science. Its journalism combines ground reporting with studio-based programmes — Talking Science, Mapping Faultlines, Indian Economy and Global Roundup among them — and it has built a loyal audience on the Indian left. In recent years the portal has become one of the most legally embattled media houses in the country: investigated by the Enforcement Directorate since 2021 over alleged foreign funding linked to American businessman Neville Roy Singham, raided by the Delhi Police in October 2023, its founder arrested under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and then released in May 2024 after the Supreme Court declared the arrest illegal. NewsClick has consistently denied the allegations against it.

History

NewsClick was launched in 2009 by Prabir Purkayastha as an online news portal covering politics, economy, culture and sports from a progressive and critical perspective. Its headquarters are in New Delhi, with an additional office in Mumbai. From the start, the portal positioned itself outside the commercial mainstream: reader- and mission-oriented, sympathetic to labour unions, farmers' movements, student activism and the Indian left, and sceptical of corporate and government power. Its early years built a reputation for in-depth video programming — long interviews and panel discussions rather than shouting-match television.

The portal's profile rose sharply during the farmers' protests of 2020–21, which it covered extensively from the protest sites at Delhi's borders. It was during this period that the state's attention turned decisively toward it: in 2021, Enforcement Directorate officials raided the NewsClick office in Delhi's Saidulajab area and Purkayastha's residence over allegations of money laundering and foreign funding. The ED's probe followed a case registered by the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing in 2020. No arrests were made in the 2021 raids, but the investigation continued — and in 2023 it exploded into one of the biggest press-freedom controversies of the decade.

Founder Prabir Purkayastha

Prabir Purkayastha's biography bridges engineering, activism and journalism. He began his career as a software engineer with Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) in Bangalore, working there for about a decade on software for digital switching systems and serving as general secretary of the ITI Employees Union. In 1984 he joined the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the government telecom R&D organisation, where he worked for some 15 years as a senior scientist and project leader, playing a key role in developing RAX, India's first indigenous digital switching system for rural exchanges.

Parallel to his engineering career, Purkayastha was a committed activist: a founding member of the Delhi Science Forum, active in the People's Science Movement, and in 1998 a co-founder of the Free Software Movement of India. He was arrested during the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975. He also earned a diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and has written books and articles on software freedom, digital sovereignty and data privacy. In 2009 he channelled this unusual combination — technologist, trade unionist, activist — into founding NewsClick, where he serves as editor-in-chief and director and hosts several of its programmes.

Editorial Mission

NewsClick's editorial mission is explicitly progressive. The portal states that it focuses on 'progressive movements' in India — trade unions, peasant organisations, student and youth movements, women's struggles, and campaigns for social justice — alongside critical coverage of economic policy, foreign affairs and culture. Its journalism is sympathetic to the organised left and to mass movements, and it has been sharply critical of successive governments' economic policies, from liberalisation to demonetisation to the farm laws.

This positioning gives NewsClick a distinct audience: activists, academics, trade unionists and left-leaning readers who feel unrepresented by mainstream media. Its programming reflects the mission — shows on labour, agriculture, science and the global economy rather than celebrity or crime. The portal maintains that it is an independent media organisation that does not publish news at the behest of any foreign entity or take directions on content from any funder, a denial it has repeated throughout its legal troubles.

Programmes and Coverage

NewsClick's output centres on studio-based video programming supplemented by ground reporting and documentaries. Its flagship shows include Talking Science, which explores scientific and technological issues; Mapping Faultlines, on geopolitics and global conflicts; Indian Economy, offering critical analysis of economic policy; and Global Roundup, surveying international news. These long-form programmes — often running to an hour — contrast deliberately with the pace of television news, aiming for depth over sensation.

The portal's ground reporting has focused on labour and agriculture: factory workers, contract labour, migrant workers, farmers' protests, land acquisition struggles and rural distress. Its video documentaries on social movements and its coverage of issues such as the Citizenship Amendment Act protests and the farmers' agitation built its reputation as a movement-aligned newsroom. The site also publishes text articles, interviews and opinion pieces, with contributors drawn from academia, activism and journalism.

The Funding Allegations

In August 2023, The New York Times published an investigation reporting that NewsClick was part of a global network financed by Neville Roy Singham, an American businessman of Sri Lankan-Cuban descent whom the report described as working closely with the Chinese government's media apparatus. The report said the website 'sprinkled its coverage with Chinese government talking points' — claims that both Singham and NewsClick rejected. NewsClick stated that it does not publish news or information at the behest of any Chinese entity or authority and does not take directions from Singham on its content.

Indian agencies had already been pursuing a parallel track. The Enforcement Directorate's probe alleged that PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd received some Rs 38 crore in foreign funding between 2018 and 2021, shown as 'proceeds from export of services', from entities linked to Singham, and that part of the funds was channelled to left-wing activists including Gautam Navlakha, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case. The ED attached a flat worth Rs 4.52 crore in south Delhi's Saket area linked to Purkayastha along with fixed deposits worth Rs 41 lakh. The allegations were raised in Parliament, where BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said the funds were used to create an 'anti-India environment'. More than 250 former judges, bureaucrats, military officers and diplomats wrote to the President and the Chief Justice seeking action. In 2026, the ED issued a Rs 184-crore penalty notice against NewsClick's entities for alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, including misrepresentation of FDI funds and misdeclaration of services and exports.

The UAPA Case and Arrest

On 3 October 2023, the Delhi Police's Special Cell carried out sweeping raids at around 100 locations across the national capital linked to NewsClick — its office, the residences of nearly 80 journalists, contributors and associates — seizing computers, mobile phones and documents. The same day, the police arrested Purkayastha and the portal's HR head, Amit Chakravarty, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), India's stringent anti-terror law, along with other penal sections. Dozens of current and former employees and contributors were questioned for hours.

The arrests triggered national and international outrage, with press-freedom organisations, opposition leaders and journalists' bodies calling it an assault on independent media. The case took a dramatic turn in January 2024 when a court allowed Chakravarty to turn approver, and the police subsequently filed a chargesheet running to more than 8,000 pages. But on 15 May 2024, the Supreme Court declared Purkayastha's arrest illegal and ordered his immediate release on bail, ruling that the Delhi Police had failed to furnish him or his counsel with the grounds of arrest in writing before the remand order of 4 October 2023 — a violation of the principles the court had laid down for arrests under stringent laws. Purkayastha, then 77 and in custody for over seven months, walked out of Tihar Jail the same day. NewsClick termed the chargesheet 'baseless' and 'concocted'.

Legal and Regulatory Battles

Beyond the UAPA case, NewsClick has fought on multiple legal fronts. The Enforcement Directorate's money-laundering investigation, running since 2021, has proceeded alongside the Foreign Exchange Management Act proceedings that culminated in the Rs 184-crore penalty notice. The portal has challenged the agencies' actions in court, maintaining that its funding was legitimate and its journalism independent. The Supreme Court's May 2024 judgment — extending to UAPA the principle that grounds of arrest must be shared in writing, first laid down for the Prevention of Money Laundering Act — became a landmark in itself, cited in subsequent debates on arrest procedures under stringent laws.

The cases have also raised larger questions about the use of anti-terror and financial laws against media organisations. Supporters of the action argue that foreign funding of media with geopolitical strings attached is a legitimate national-security concern; critics argue that the UAPA, with its stringent bail provisions and extended chargesheet timelines, is being weaponised to punish critical journalism. The Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court continue to hear aspects of the litigation, and the underlying trials remain pending.

Business Model

NewsClick has operated as a mission-driven digital outlet rather than a conventional commercial news business. Its revenues have come from a mix of advertising, syndication, and — centrally to the controversies — foreign funding received by its holding company, PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt Ltd, which the ED alleges was routed as payments for services including consultancy and content work. The portal has not operated a paywall, keeping its content free in line with its movement-oriented mission of reaching the widest possible audience.

The funding structure that sustained its relatively large video operation — studios, production staff, a roster of contributors — is precisely what the agencies have questioned. Whether the foreign funds were legitimate commercial receipts or, as the ED alleges, a conduit for influence, is the central factual dispute of the ongoing cases. What is not disputed is that the model allowed NewsClick to maintain an editorial operation of a scale unusual for an independent left publication in India.

Place in Indian Media

NewsClick occupies a singular place in Indian journalism: a portal that is simultaneously a newsroom, a political cause and a legal landmark. For its supporters, it is proof that independent progressive journalism can survive in a hostile environment — and that the courts can still check the state, as the Supreme Court did in May 2024. For its detractors, it is a cautionary tale about opaque foreign funding and the vulnerability of media to geopolitical influence operations.

Whichever narrative prevails in the courts, the NewsClick saga has already reshaped the landscape: it has intensified scrutiny of foreign funding across Indian digital media, produced a landmark Supreme Court ruling on arrest procedures under the UAPA, and become an international reference point in debates on press freedom in India. Founded in 2009 as a small progressive portal, NewsClick has become — through its journalism and its persecution, in the eyes of its respective audiences — one of the defining media stories of contemporary India.