Yagna Balaji is Founder-Editor of DT Next, an English daily from Tamil Nadu's Daily Thanthi group and the website dtnext.in. She heads the content for the website dtnext.in, as well as the paper’s other social media and online properties.

A journalist with two decades in the field, Yagna was instrumental in the launch of the Deccan Chronicle newspaper in Tamil Nadu in 2005. Under her leadership, Tamil Nadu’s first tabloid, Chennai Chronicle was launched. A decade later in 2015, she once again launched a brand new city-focussed newspaper for Chennai – DT Next. In a short time, DT Next has built a young and loyal readership, and is poised for growth across the state. Investigative reports, hard-hitting stories and a reader-first approach has been instrumental in the paper’s success.

Yagna has led workshops on developing communication skills, and has also been the recipient of awards for articles on developmental journalism. She has served on panels of graduate level media study programs to promote ethical journalism.

Yagna completed her graduation from St Francis College in Hyderabad, and her post-graduation in Journalism & Communication from the Symbiosis, Pune.

About DT Next: DT Next is a daily broadsheet from the 75-year-old Daily Thanthi group, which is circulated in and around Chennai. The group also brings out India's largest circulated Tamil newspaper Daily Thanthi, leading news channel Thanthi TV and the top rated regional radio station Hello FM.