Sameer Hashmi
Sameer Hashmi began his journalistic career in 2008 when he joined The Economic Times newspaper.
In 2009, Sameer was part of the pilot team that moved from The Economic Times to launch the group's business television news channel - ET NOW.
As part of ET NOW's reporting team, Sameer covered some of the biggest financial stories, including the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis on India and the crisis in India's aviation sector.
In 2012, Sameer joined the BBC as their business correspondent in India's financial capital Mumbai.
As well as from reporting for India Business Report, he reports across all business news outlets of the BBC from India.
Some of the big financial stories covered by Sameer include comprehensive coverage on the slowdown of the Indian economy, the multi-billion dollar coal corruption scam and the Kingfisher airlines crisis.
In April 2013, Sameer did an indepth report on the impact of the Saradha Ponzi scheme in Eastern India which saw millions of investors losing their life savings, leading some to commit suicide. Most of the investors were poor people who had invested their entire life savings in the scheme.
Sameer has also interviewed some of the biggest names in the world of business, such as Richard Branson, Ratan Tata, Tony Fernandes and Vijay Mallya.
Sameer also regularly reports on major general news stories from India. He covered the collapse of an unauthorised building in Mumbai in which over 70 people lost their lives.
Other big stories covered by Sameer include the 2011 Mumbai bombings and the gang rape incident in August 2013. He was also the first journalist to interview a British couple who were kidnapped in the south Indian city of Chennai.
Sameer got his degree in business management from Bangalore University in 2006. After that he pursued an MS in Communications from Manipal Institute of Communication, Karnataka.
