{"id":7350,"date":"2019-05-10T07:38:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T02:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indiauncut.com\/?page_id=7350"},"modified":"2019-07-29T22:45:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T17:15:09","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/indiauncut.com\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About Amit Varma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Amit Varma is a writer based in Mumbai. He dabbled with advertising, television and entrepreneurship in the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s before settling down in journalism. The last fulltime job he held was as managing editor of <a title=\"Cricinfo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espncricinfo.com\/\">Cricinfo<\/a>, and he also wrote on economics, politics and culture for publications such as the <i>Wall Street Journal<\/i>, the <i>Guardian<\/i> and the <i>Observer<\/i>. He wrote columns for <i>Mint<\/i> (\u2018<a title=\"Thinking it Through -- Amit Varma\" href=\"\/category\/thinking-it-through\/\">Thinking it Through<\/a>\u2019), Yahoo! (\u2018<a title=\"Viewfinder -- Amit Varma\" href=\"\/category\/Viewfinder\/\">Viewfinder<\/a>\u2019), <i>Mail Today<\/i> and the <i>Hindu Business Line<\/i> (\u2018<a title=\"Lighthouse -- Amit Varma\" href=\"\/category\/lighthouse\/\">Lighthouse<\/a>\u2019). He <a title=\"The Bastiat Prize for Journalism\" href=\"http:\/\/reason.org\/news\/show\/bastiat-prize-winners#winner2007\">won the prestigious Bastiat Prize for Journalism in 2007<\/a>, awarded annually to a writer &#8220;whose writings wittily and eloquently explain, promote and defend the principles of the free society.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He is best known, though, for his blog India Uncut, which was probably India\u2019s most widely read blog between 2003 and 2009, and won various awards. In 2009, <i>Businessweek<\/i> named Amit <a title=\"India\u2019s 50 Most Powerful People\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20111201092857\/http:\/\/images.businessweek.com\/ss\/09\/04\/0415_india_most_powerful\/49.htm\">one of India\u2019s 50 Most Powerful People<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>His first novel, <i><a title=\"My Friend Sancho -- Amit Varma\" href=\"\/myfriendsancho\">My Friend Sancho<\/a><\/i>, was published in 2009, and became the biggest-selling debut novel of the year. Its manuscript had been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Amit was a professional poker player for a few years after that, and wrote a column on the game for the <i>Economic Times<\/i> (\u2018<a title=\"Range Rover -- Amit Varma\" href=\"\/category\/range-rover\/\">Range Rover<\/a>\u2019). Both poker and writing are all-consuming, and in 2015 <a title=\"Why I Loved and Left Poker -- Amit Varma\" href=\"\/why-i-loved-and-left-poker\/\">he decided<\/a> to prioritise the writing and go back to being a part-time poker player. He is currently working on a non-fiction book about the lack of personal and economic freedoms in post-Independence India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amit Varma is a writer based in Mumbai. He dabbled with advertising, television and entrepreneurship in the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s before settling down in journalism. The last fulltime &#8230; <a title=\"About Amit Varma\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/indiauncut.com\/about\/\" aria-label=\"More on About Amit Varma\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>About Amit Varma - India Uncut<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/indiauncut.com\/about\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"About Amit Varma - India Uncut\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amit Varma is a writer based in Mumbai. 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