Ms S Rukmini Founder & Director, Data For India
Rukmini S. is an independent data journalist based in Chennai.
In 2004, she began covering Mumbai city for the Times of India. Since 2010, she has specialised in data journalism. She was the first Data Editor of an Indian newsroom, initially at The Hindu and then at HuffPost India. She has also reported on the field from across the country.
She now writes for a range of publications including Mint, IndiaSpend and the Guardian. She won the global Sigma Awards for Data Journalism and a Jury Special Mention for Investigative Reporting at the ACJ Awards in 2022. Her pandemic podcast, The Moving Curve, won an Emergent Ventures India Covid-19 Prize in 2020. She was awarded the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Media person (Honourable Mention) in 2020. Born in Pune, she studied in Mumbai and London, and has a postgraduate diplomat social communications media and an MSc in development studies.
Rukmini founded ‘Data for India’, a public platform to expand the understanding of India through data for everyone and leads research and writing. Data For India uses public data from the Indian government and multilateral agencies like the World Bank to produce research-backed datadriven insights and charts on socio-economic issues.