Vinod Dua (born 11 March 1954) is a media personality of India. He has been the face of Indian television since 1974. He has seen and been associated with Indian television’s transition from a government controlled, black and white, single-channel entity to the present-day multi-channel transnational satellite TV industry. A veteran of thousands of hours of telecasting, Vinod Dua is an anchor, political commentator, election analyst, producer and director. He achived the first electronic media journalist awarded by esteemed BD Goenka Award for excellence in journalism in 1996 and the Padma Shri for Journalism in 2008 by Government of India.
Vinod Dua’s early upbringing was in the refugee colonies of Delhi. He graduated with a degree in English Literature from Hans Raj College and obtained his master's degree in literature, both from the University of Delhi. Vinod Dua was a singer and debater in his school and college days. He was also associated with theater activity in Delhi till the mid-80s. He has written two plays for children, performed by the Sutradhar Puppet Theater of Sri Ram Center for Art and Culture. He was also a member of Theatre Union, a street theatre group which created and performed plays against social problems like dowry.
Vinod Dua first appeared on television on November 27, 1974 in Yuva Manch, a Hindi youth program aired on Doordarshan (then known as Delhi television). In 1975, he anchored Yuv Jan for the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) telecast for the youth of Raipur, Muzaffarpur and Jaipur. In the same year he also began anchoring Jawan Tarang, a youth program of newly commissioned Amritsar TV. He continued to anchor youth programs for these channels till 1980. In 1981, he started anchoring the Sunday morning family magazine Aap Ke Liye and continued to do so till 1984. The year 1984 marked a turning point in his career when he co-anchored the election analysis programs on Doordarshan with the noted psephologist Dr. Prannoy Roy. Since then he has been a regular presence on election analysis programs for different television channels. In 1985, Vinod Dua anchored Janvani (translation: People's voice), the first ever program of its kind, where ministers were questioned by common people. This program became a landmark in the history of Indian television, inspiring a series of similar programs in today’s multi-channel scenario. The same year also saw initial openings of Indian television to non-governmental content providers. In 1987, he joined TV Today, a venture of the India Today Group, as its chief producer.
In 1988, he launched his own production company ‘The Communication Group’ to produce and anchor programs on current affairs, budget analyses and documentary films. In 1992 he anchored Chakravyuha for Zee TV. From 1992 to 1996 he produced Parakh, a weekly current affairs magazine telecast on Doordarshan (DD). He worked with News World India as editor in chief. He hosted the channel's primetime show Vinod Dua Live. Other notable programs he has anchored include Tasveer-e-Hind (1997–98) on DD3, Chunav Chunauti (March, 1998) on Sony Entertainment Television, Election analysis (1999) on Zee News, Pratidin and Parakh (2000–2003) on Sahara TV and Kaun Banega Mukhyamantri (2003) on STAR News. Vinod Dua is associated with IBN7 for daily news and analysis, election and budget analysis.