Brij Lal, the host of the New York based "Bharat Vani" television and radio program and the Connecticut based "Let's Talk" Comcast cable television show died in Ridgefield CT on Nov 20, 2005. He is survived by his wife Dorothy Lal and daughter and granddaughter Leslie and Andrea Abi-Karam.
Lal was born in Bharatpur India on April 11, 1924. He moved to New York City in 1951 and worked for 21 years as a radio writer and producer at ABC Network Radio News. He wrote broadcasts about the United States, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Middle East. He wrote and produced the award winning weekly program "Viet Nam Update" for ABC Radio Network.
Lal was a correspondent for the Voice of America covering the White House, the State Department and the United Nations.
Lal hosted the "Bharat Vani" television and radio program broadcast from New York. This weekly program fosters communication between India and the United States and has been on the air since 1975. It is heard in New York and New Jersey.
Lal was also the host of the weekly program "Let's Talk" on Comcast television in Danbury, CT. Mr. Lal interviewed people of interest in the community on a variety of subjects from health care to local events and politics.
Lal was the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1993 for exceptional humanitarian efforts and outstanding contributions to America. He was inducted into the South Asian Journalists Association Hall of Fame presented by Salman Rushdie in 2004. He interviewed such notables as Indian Prime Misters Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao, I.K Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Senator Robert Kennedy and actor Ben Kingsley.
Brij Lal was the nephew of another legendary Indian American journalist, the late Gobind Behari Lal - America's first science writer and winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Both Lals were selected as inaugural members of the SAJA Hall of Fame in 2004. The SAJA Hall of Fame pays tribute to South Asian men and women who have had long-lasting, far-reaching impact on the North American news business(and, on occasion to non-South Asians whose work has had a similar impact on the coverage of South Asia diaspora).
Other inductees include: Rajan Devdas, photojournalist for more than 60 years; Amrit Kakaria, who retired in 2002 after 45 years in the media; and James W. Michaels, former editor of Forbes who first covered India during its struggle for independence and revisited the region in reports over five decades.
