Chilkuri Sushil Rao

  There were risks involved. They were for real. Not imaginary. I stood near the bend into the lane at Mehboob ki Mehndi near the High Court. Do I make my way into the area or refrain? The safest answer option was: refrain. Why go there? Why take a risk? Why get into trouble? Why suffer shame? Why face embarrassing questions? And why end up in jail? Getting arrested and ending up in jail was a definite possibility. As a journalist working for Deccan Chronicle at that time, I had regularly reported about the police raiding the place. From time to time, whenever the raids happened, I also reported about the arrests of women engaged in prostitution, their "sethanis" who ran the business, and the house owners who rented out places for prostitution activities. I would also report about policemen getting arrested as they too would visit the red-light area and get caught. Like others, cases would be booked against them and they would be sent to jail. The law was the same for everyon...

                                                       "Rasoolpura," the voice at the other end said. No more details. Not even the house number. Not even the name of the specific area. No directions to the house. This was a tough task. It had to be done. And it had to be done immediately. I felt the urgency. There were many hassles. First thing was the deadline of the newspaper. And this tip-off came sometime close to midnight. Secondly, the near impossible situation of being able to find the place. This was in the early 1990s. No mobiles. No GPS. No location maps. But I felt it had to be done. The tip-off that I got was that a minor girl was to be married off to an aged man. He had come from one of the Gulf countries. The family found a reason to marry off the child to the man. They felt this was the best thing to do. The ...

  A 16-year-old girl was taken captive by her own family members. She became a prisoner in their hands. The ‘prison’ was bizarre. I went there to see for myself what was happening and to write a news report. This was in 1996. I was then working for A P Times. It baffled me as to how the family could have come up with such an idea. “It is the idea of a relative of the family,” the villagers told me. I travelled to this far-flung village in Mahbubnagar district to see this, and what I learnt was something I felt was criminal. A room was constructed for the girl to stay in. Here’s the catch. There was no door to the room. She could not come out of it, even if she wanted to. She had to use the same room to attend nature’s calls. From a small opening in one of the walls, she was given food to eat. This completely enclosed space was all her world. “Why?” I asked the family. “People are already flocking to our place from nearby villages in large numbers. They are paying obeisance to her,”...

      After having been a journalist for the last 38 years, it indeed was a moment of crowning glory when Information Technology, Electronics and Communication, Industry and Commerce, and Legislative Affairs Minister Duddilla Sridhar Babu bestowed on me the “Media Legend Award” at a function held at Cyber Gardens, Hitec City, Hyderabad, on May 2, 2026. The media awards were instituted in 2021 by Hybiz TV to recognise media professionals for their work in different streams. During the media awards for the year 2026, apart from the awards given away in various categories, five personalities were chosen by a committee to be honoured with the Legend Award. It indeed is an honour for me that I was chosen. It was indeed a privilege receiving the Media Legend Award from Minister Sridhar Babu, Vivek Gupta, President, Indian Newspaper Society, former MP (Rajya Sabha) and Publisher of Sunmarg, Narendra Ram Nambula, Chairman and Managing Director of Lifespan Pvt Ltd, M Ravinder Redd...

  True story: When the most wanted criminal could not run away from himself An imagined posthumously written last page in the diary of Pallakonda Raju  Everyone wished to see my end. That it came soon. With torture added. You wanted to see fear writ large on my face. You wanted me to notice that they had no pity whatsoever for me. I did not deserve any of their pity, after all that I had done. I saw the celebrations that took place at Singareni Colony in Saidabad in Hyderabad, when the news burst on everyone’s faces that I had died. They burst crackers. There were some who wanted to dismember my body. That would have meant death several times over—for their sake. Their anger was justified. They made no bones of their intentions. I won't sit in judgment over them and the stance they took. What moral right do I have anyway? When I did the unthinkable to a little girl, I had stripped myself of all my rights to live after that. I had myself signed my death warrant then itself. As ...

Profile of  Chilkuri Sushil Rao, Journalist.  Overview Chilkuri Sushil Rao from Hyderabad has been a journalist since 1988.  He has been with The Times of India, Hyderabad since its launch in Hyderabad from the year 2000. He is Editor-Special Reports and focuses on covering Defence, Indian diaspora across the world, the Telugu film industry, socially relevant subjects and Telangana state. He has covered several elections during his career as a journalist, including interviewing national leaders and doing investigative reports. He began his journalism career at the age of 20 and has completed 37 years in journalism in 2025. He is a gold medalist in bachelor’s in Communication and Journalism from the Department of Communication and Journalism, Arts College, Osmania University, Hyderabad. He also did his Master’s in journalism from the same department. In the socially relevant stories that he has written, Chilkuri Sushil Rao wrote reports highlighting the plight of women tra...