CHITRA RAGAVANhitra Ragavan

Senior writer, U.S. News & World Report

CHITRA RAGAVAN recently moved to U.S. News & World Report as a senior writer covering the Justice Department and the law beat. Until Nov. 1998, she was Congressional correspondent for National Public Radio's Washington bureau, where worked since 1995. She reported on a wide range of stories dealing with Congress and various agencies.

In March 1996, she returned to India, her country of birth, to cover the Indian elections for NPR. Ragavan has worked as a print, television, and radio journalist since 1981. She began contributing stories to NPR's Science Desk in 1989 as a free-lance reporter. She moved to Washington in 1993 to become a full-time national correspondent for NPR. Ragavan traveled all over the United States and to India, producing long reports and several major series on the impact of the AIDS epidemic.

She also spent a year reporting on the enormous battle over President Clinton's health care proposal that eventually failed in Congress. Ragavan spent eight years at WTTW/Channel 11 Public Television, Chicago and served as principal on-air correspondent for the award-winning public affairs program Chicago Tonight. She covered a wide range of political, health, medical, and foreign affairs stories. Before moving to the United States, Ragavan was a reporter and editor at the Press Trust of India (PTI), an English-language news agency in India.

Ragavan has a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and Biology from the University of Bombay and a Master's degree in Journalism from the University of Georgia. She was born and raised in India and currently lives in Washington, DC.