Saurabh Dwivedi to join The Indian Express: Can Lallantop’s success be replicated?

Senior journalist Saurabh Dwivedi is expected to join The Indian Express Group as part of its strategic expansion into the Hindi news space, following his recent departure from the India Today Group, where he spent nearly 12 years shaping some of the organisation’s most impactful digital journalism ventures.

Although no official announcement has been made, industry sources indicate that Dwivedi will play a key role in driving The Indian Express Group’s Hindi editorial and digital growth. The larger question remains whether the journalist who transformed Lallantop into a leading Hindi digital platform within a major media conglomerate can replicate that success in another legacy media organisation with a distinct editorial culture.

Dwivedi’s career trajectory is closely linked to the India Today Group’s early investments in digital journalism. He joined as Features Editor at AajTak.in during a period when Hindi digital news was still emerging and later went on to establish Lallantop.

Leveraging the group’s resources, distribution reach, and willingness to experiment, Lallantop was developed as a bold, digital-first brand that diverged from traditional TV-led news formats. Under Dwivedi’s leadership, it grew into one of India’s most influential digital-first Hindi news platforms, known for long-form political interviews, nuanced discussions, and issue-driven reporting that strongly appealed to younger Hindi-speaking audiences. Today, Lallantop boasts nearly 35 million YouTube subscribers and over 250 million views in the past month alone, according to publicly available data, establishing it as one of the country’s top Hindi news channels.

Industry observers emphasize that Lallantop’s success was not solely due to Dwivedi’s leadership but also the India Today Group’s strategic foresight. The group’s willingness to grant editorial independence, invest patiently in digital growth, and support personality-driven journalism enabled Dwivedi and his team to scale without compromising credibility. Lallantop has since become a case study on how legacy media houses can successfully incubate digital-native brands.

Sources indicate that Dwivedi is likely to oversee editorial, digital, and broadcast initiatives for The Indian Express’s Hindi vertical. His role is expected to include video programming, e-paper operations, and overall content strategy, with a focus on scaling Hindi YouTube offerings. Reports also suggest that his responsibilities may extend to the group’s events and public engagement activities, though details are still evolving.

This move would mark a significant step in The Indian Express’s efforts to engage Hindi-speaking audiences more deeply. Known for its investigative rigor and analytical approach in English journalism, the group now aims to translate that editorial DNA into formats and platforms that resonate with a digitally native Hindi readership.

Within the media industry, the potential appointment has generated considerable discussion, given both Dwivedi’s reputation and the challenges ahead. At Lallantop, he operated in a relatively new digital environment while benefiting from the India Today Group’s institutional backing. At The Indian Express, he will need to navigate a different organisational structure, editorial legacy, and decision-making pace. Dwivedi’s journalistic style—marked by depth, clarity, and an intuitive grasp of platform dynamics—has earned wide acclaim. Yet, replicating the Lallantop model will require more than individual brand recognition. Balancing editorial independence with institutional processes, and innovation with tradition, will be crucial.

For The Indian Express Group, Dwivedi’s induction would represent a strategic investment in leadership that combines deep journalistic expertise with digital scale. For Dwivedi, it signals a new chapter—moving from building a successful digital brand within the India Today ecosystem to attempting a similar transformation in a different legacy newsroom. Whether he can reimagine or recreate the Lallantop model in this setting is likely to become one of the most closely watched experiments in Hindi digital journalism.