Radhika Roy

Radhika was born in Calcutta, West Bengal on 7 May 1949, at 5/1B Belvedre Road to Ashrukona Basu Mallick, a grandniece of Raja Subodh Chandra Basu Mallick and Sooraj Lal Dass, who had migrated to the city during the partition of India. In the 1960s, Radhika was sent to study at Welham Girls' boarding school in Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh. Radhika met Prannoy Roy during her teenage years. Prannoy was also from Calcutta, and attending The Doon School, a boys' boarding school in Dehradun. Radhika and Prannoy moved to London, United Kingdom for higher education, where they got married and then returned to India, settling down in Delhi. In London, she studied at the Oldrey Fleming School and became a qualified speech pathologist. She also graduated with a degree in English literature from Miranda House, University of Delhi.

Radhika Roy began her career as a journalist at The Indian Express where she worked for the editing desk. She joined the India Today magazine, where she was a new coordinator. Roy quit her job at the magazine to join The New School For Social Research for a post-graduate degree in broadcast journalism in New York, United States. She also applied for and completed a course in television production at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. In 1984, Radhika Roy along with her economist husband Prannoy Roy founded New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV). Both the Roys are considered to be the founders of company, but according to Prannoy, Radhika was the original founder of the company and that he joined afterwards. The company began as a production house for the public broadcaster Doordarshan, and became the first independent news broadcaster in India. NDTV is considered to be a legacy brand, which set the template for broadcast journalism in India.