Award winning journalist Vinita Deshmukh has had a chequred career in journalism for the last 21 years. Presently, she is the editor of Intelligent Pune, the vibrant pro-public English weekly tabloid that has already created waves for its indepth, incisive and relevant coverage of the city.
Vinita Deshmukh's longest span with incisive journalism was with The Indian Express, Pune from 1987 to 2006. She worked in various senior capacities with this newspaper like being the features editor, deputy resident editor and finally as Senior Editor. She was also in charge of CITIZEN, the popular fortnightly magazine of the Indian Express which ran for seven and a half years.
Vinita's forte is environment, heritage, social and civic issues, Right To Information and human interest. Her sustained four year campaign on environmental degradation in Mahabaleshwar had the environmentalists and the government authorities sit up. Because of this campaign, the uninon ministry of environment and forests put Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani in an eco sensitive zone - the first ever hill station in India to come under such stringent norms.
Vinita has won the prestigious Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, twice - once in 1998 for her story on the Morachi Chincholi, the peacock village and in 2005 for her story on reverse migration in some villages of Maharashtra.
Vinita has invoked RTI a few times and believes it is the best weapon for journalists.Her exposure of Dow Chemicals in Pune through the RTI is a sterling example of use of RTI by journalists. She has formed the RTI Forum for Instant Information to make citizens aware of inspection of files through Section 4 of the RTI. For this, she holds free workshops every second Saturday at Fergusson College.
Vinita is a guest faculty in some mass communication institutes of the city