The CURE Community Leaders

Dr. Prakash Muthu Swamy, Ph.D.
Dr. Prakash Muthu Swamy, Ph D, one of the most senior Indian-American journalists, has completed 25 years as an international journalist and editor in New York serving the Indian-American community. His expertise range from print media to television, newspaper management to production and has served with distinction both in the United States and in his home country- India.

He is one of the few individuals in the Indian-American media who has risen to the very top of the chosen field of endeavor by virtue of his gifted skills and writing craft. Swamy’s writings are always aimed toward promoting better cooperation and understanding between India and the United States and he stood with the US in its war against terrorism by projecting the correct views and images to educate his rich and powerful Indian-American readers who are now occupying important professions and positions across the US.

As a diplomatic correspondent with the United Nations for over eight years, he has met and interviewed world leaders, presidents and heads of state and has carried out his media job with distinction and dignity. He has a thorough insight and understanding of international politics and diplomacy and this has helped him in great deal in his career as a seasoned journalist in the US.

He is currently working as editor-in-chief of The Urban Indian news magazine published in New York and consulting editor of Caribbean New Yorker. He was founding Managing Editor of South Asian Insider and India Weekly USA, two English weeklies published in New York for South Asians. He had also worked as Associate Editor of News India- Times and Desi Talk, published in New York for Indian-Americans and Senior Editor of India Abroad, a premier Indian-American publication in the US and India Abroad News Service in New York. He had his internship at Gainesville Sun, a New York Times Group newspaper, Gainesville, Florida. He did his graduate studies in journalism at the University of Florida in Gainesville and followed it up with a doctoral degree in media studies.

His assignments in India include Executive Editor of Junior Vikatan of Ananda Vikatan Group in Chennai. India, Bureau Chief and Principal Correspondent, India Today, English and Tamil editions, Principal Correspondent and Editor of International Edition, The Hindu newspaper and Senior Reporter at The Hindu Group of Publications. He has contributed business and United Nations news and features to The Hindu Business Line daily newspaper from New York. He has reported news for the Sun News Network from New York for three years from 1999. Coverage includes live coverage of World Trade Center tragedy and Indian Prime Minister’s visits to Washington and New York.

He had written hundreds of investigative reporting stories in India Today and Junior Vikatan, South India’s leading investigative reporting bi-weekly publication against the then state government in India on issues ranging from corruption to abuse of power, land grabbing to foreign exchange violations. He was quoted by The New York Times newspaper in one of its reports as a fearless Indian journalist. The New York-based media watchdog organization - Committee to Protect Journalists - highlighted his crusade against corruption by politicians in India and the attacks unleashed to silence him.

In 2006, the US House of Representatives decorated him with a proclamation commending his role in promoting India-US relations as a journalist under the initiative of Congressman Anthony Weiner. He was honored by the US Department of Commerce and US Census Bureau in 2001 for promoting Census-2000 among South Asians living in the US and helping them sign up for the national Census. He is the only Indian-American journalist chosen for the award, 2001. He was also elected Executive Member of the United Nations Correspondents Association in 2001, Charter member of South Asian Journalists’ Association, New York, and executive member of the Foreign Press Association, New York in 2006 and Vice President of the New York Tamil Association in 1999.

Other honors include nomination as one of the Board of Advisors at the Institute of Journalism and New Media, Bangalore in 2000 and appointment as Chancellor’s nominee of the Senate of the University of Madras for a three-year term in 1993. He won the Professional Excellence Award of the Rotary International, Lions International’s Best Investigative Reporting Award. In recognition of his outstanding media contribution, he was made Rotary International’s Goodwill Ambassador and sent to the US for higher studies in the US in 1986. Recently, he was made honorary executive director of Indian American Business Promotion Council (www.iabpc.org) that aims to promote better trade and business ties between the two countries.

.