Dina Vakil is the consulting editor of the Times of India, Mumbai. She has been a journalist since 1971 and was the first woman in India to be appointed Resident Editor of a major English language daily. Dina headed The Times’ Mumbai edition – one of the country’s largest – for more than a decade (until May 2005). Dina was earlier the editor of The Independent, Mumbai, also a Times newspaper, and prior to that, executive editor of The Indian Post, a national daily.

Dina began her journalistic career with the United Nations’ Office of Public Information in New York in 1970, shortly after obtaining an MS degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism. She holds a BA degree from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts (Class of 1969), from which she graduated cum laude and with distinction. In 1969, she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honours society.

On returning to India in 1971, she joined The Times of India Group, starting with the women’s magazine, Femina, and moving on to The Economic Times newspaper in the same group as assistant editor. She also renewed her UN association in New York and later Vienna and did several short-term assignments both with the United Nations Secretariat and the United Nations Development Programme. She worked for three-and-a-half years at the Indian Express in the early 1980s, where she was in charge of the Sunday magazine.

As consulting editor of The Times of India, a full-time position, Dina will continue to be actively involved with writing for and editing the Mumbai edition.