Monita Rajpal is a CNN news anchor on ‘World News’, a live, daily half-hour round-up of international news headlines. Based in London since the end of 2004, she also hosted ‘Art of Life’, CNN’s luxury lifestyle feature show.
Since joining CNN in 2001, Rajpal has anchored many leading global and breaking news stories. In 2007, Rajpal interviewed former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, former Vice President Al Gore and the former Pakistani Prime Minister Benzir Bhutto, along with reporting on Tony Blair’s departure from government. In 2008 and 2009, Rajpal hosted and reported on CNN's ‘Luxury Week’, a series of reports on the luxury industry and the economic downturn where she interviewed CEOs of top brands such as Buglari, Chopard, and Cartier. Rajpal has also reported live on numerous occasions, including live transmissions from Delhi, India for CNN Today and hosted a CNN special ‘CNN Connects’, an hour long programme on India’s Generation Next. She also reported live from the Live Earth concert held at Wembley Stadium.
For Rajpal’s ‘Art of Life’, she has reported from Havana, Cuba; Rajasthan, India; Beijing and Shanghai, China; Champagne, France, the Moncao Grand Prix, and the Venice Carnivale. She also hosted a half hour special on the fashion designer Tom Ford in which she was granted exclusive access to him and his home. She has also interviewed designers Alberta Ferretti at her headquarters in Cattolica, Italy as well as Donatella Versace as part of a half hour special Rajpal hosted on the 2006 Academy Awards. Also for Art of Life, Rajpal interviewed tennis great Boris Becker, cosmetics giant Aerin Lauder (of Estee Lauder), Olivier Krug (of Krug Champagne) and the LVMH chief, Bernard Arnault.
In 2005 Rajpal reported on the London Bombings and Live 8, the huge charity concert held in London’s Hyde Park, interviewing among others, Bob Geldof, Peter Gabriel and Dido. She also covered the British General Election, the Death of Pope John Paul II and the first Iraqi elections. In 2004 she covered the Asian Tsunami and the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Additionally, Rajpal has interviewed many top international leaders including: Mexican President Vicente Fox, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, Colombian President Andres Pastrana and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
She has also hosted CNN's technology and environment programme ‘Global Challenges’ as well as contributing to other CNN feature shows ‘Inside the Middle East’ and ‘Design 360’ where she interviewed Italian designers Dolce and Gabbana.
In 2004 Rajpal presented CNN’s ‘Staying Alive’, a special documentary on HIV/AIDS awareness produced in conjunction with MTV. She followed this in 2005 by working with MTV on a fund-raising programme for victims of the South-East Asian Tsunami, presented from Bangkok.
Rajpal joined CNN from Citytv in Toronto, where she was a general assignment reporter and anchor. As a Citytv reporter, Rajpal covered various stories for the channel's prime-time nightly news including: federal elections, education strikes, municipal politics and the city's homeless population. In addition to her work at Citytv, Rajpal anchored the prime-time news show at Cable Pulse 24, Citytv's 24-hour news channel.
She was born in Hong Kong and spent much of her childhood there, before moving to Canada. In addition to English, she speaks conversational Cantonese, French and Punjabi.
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