Dr. Rahul Chanda

Rahul Chanda died at 6.15 pm on Monday 2 November 2026 at Hayat Hospital in Guwahati, Assam. He was 44. Reports said he had been unwell for the past few months and had been receiving hospital care, but no specific cause of death was made public.

His death came on the same day that GPlus marked its 13th anniversary with an editorial he had written. It was reported that evening by Northeast News and the next morning by The News Mill, which said his sudden death had shocked the media fraternity of Assam and the Northeast. A tribute published by KRC Times called it a profound and untimely loss for the region's press. Funeral arrangements had not been publicly reported.

Rahul Chanda was born in 1982. Details of his birthplace, parents and schooling have not been widely reported. He went on to doctoral study in his field and earned a doctorate in journalism, which he pursued alongside his professional work, and he was known to colleagues and readers as Dr Rahul Chanda.

Chanda began his career in both print and broadcast journalism. The News Mill reported that he worked with the Guwahati newspaper Seven Sisters Post and with the regional television channel Frontier TV. He also spent time in teaching, as an Assistant Professor at Assam Royal Global University in Guwahati.

In 2013 he joined the founding team of GPlus, an English language weekly and digital news platform for Guwahati owned by Insight Media. He worked there as a reporter and senior journalist and later as Bureau Chief, and over 13 years he was closely involved in shaping the paper's editorial direction and growth. Northeast News described his leadership and institutional knowledge as invaluable to the organisation and noted that he focused on issues that mattered to the people of Assam and the Northeast. He was also a mentor to younger journalists.

On 2 June 2026 he was appointed Editor of GPlus. Five months later, on the publication's 13th anniversary, he wrote the editorial "GPlus: Where Guwahati Turns for News They Can Trust", which considered how a news organisation could keep up with the speed of digital media while holding to verified, credible reporting.

Chanda lived and worked in Guwahati. He was married and had a son, who was four years old at the time of his death. He was also survived by his mother. Details of his illness were not made public.

Chanda is remembered as one of the people who built GPlus from its launch in 2013 into an established news outlet in Guwahati, and as an editor who stood for accuracy, fairness and balanced reporting. His last editorial, published hours before his death, set out his view that credibility rather than speed was what readers should expect of local journalism. Former colleagues and the younger reporters he mentored at GPlus carry on the newsroom he helped to found.